board77

laureanna, how do you have a fire-drill on a closed board?

My Sweet Chocolated Morsel wrote:

Perhaps we should have a fire drill before we try the real thing.

OKAY, GOOD IDEA -- BUT WHO COULD WE POSSIBLY GET TO PLAY THE PART OF THE TROLL?


SIGNED,

THE RESIDENT MISERABLE POLTROO

Maybe some Great and Powerful person!

Y-you mean I might get to BAN TORN?

<explodes>

A fire drill is a great idea.

In fact, we had fire drills on the agenda and I just took them off to speed the progress, but if anyone wants to troll-play, be my guest. (Just make sure you give us the yellow alert ahead of time.)

Perfection ... I wish.
The committee is as diametrically opposed as the membership is. We blah-dee-blah-blah and then we vote. Anyone who can think of a faster way to do it democratically, send me a PM

Jn

I'd like to play Troll.... maybe one of my RP IDs could get full access.... Hades would be a nice troll - or maybe I'm too nice to troll....

And we're voting faster now, and voting on more than one thing at once, and discussing more than one thing at once, and discussing one set of things while we vote on another. Interesting times. It's good Jn has a really big brickbat.

(What is a brickbat? )

Edit: I'd like to ban Hades, too, though we've never met. It would call for classical language, I think.

Eruname wrote:

The Great and Powerful TORN wrote:

lets not try to open the perfect board.

I don't think anyone is trying to do that since it's not possible. I think many people want to be as prepared as they can be.

Understood -- it was a bit of hyperbole. And I also understand that there is not universal agreement even on the proposition of opening up at all, or any time in the near future -- for example, although I don't really have much of a feeling either way on the idea of letting all the people in Invite Limbo in right away, the idea that there are still some people that some of us wouldn't want in doesn't exactly jive with the idea that the Board might open in the near future. My own view is that opening up won't be some kind of nirvana, but it will help get us past at least a good portion of these issues and will bring a little circulation to the room, so to speak -- I just don't see a huge permanent growth in the community, barring . . . I'm not sure what.

How's this for a suggestion -- write up a one or two page transitional governing document that deals with only the most crucial matters, and those in terms of general principles, with an addendum consisting of the in-progress constitution. Put that document up for an up-or-down vote -- if it gets a super-majority vote (2/3 or 3/4, I don't care), we go with it. If it fails, we can open for general discussion and amendments for a period of a few days, then vote again as before. If it still fails, then take it paragraph by paragraph through the discussion/amendment/vote process. If we get approval on the first try, it might take a week or so; the second try, 2-3 weeks; after that, I don't exactly know. However, while all this goes on, the work of the constitution committee continues. If we get approval of the transitional document, then the draft constitutional provisions would be treated as "advisory" with regard to the related parts of the transitional document are concerned, until the constitution is fully ratified and becomes the law of the Board. If we fail to get agreement on the transitional document and that process bogs down, the constitutional work continues apace and, hopefully, gets finalized and the whole transitional document just falls away without ever being implemented.

If we assume (ass-you-me) this model is agreeable, there are person-power issues raised, as we don't really want our constitutional committee dragged away too much from their important work. So once an initial draft of the transitional document is completed (either by the current constitution writers, or in conjunction with others), I and others who have not undertaken major duties on the constitutional issue could do the tilling and tending and what-not needed to get votes taken and discussions opened and the like.

Don't worry -- I won't be offended if you think that's an aweful idea -- INSTEAD, I SHALL EXACT REVENGE!!!

Actually, if you give us about a week, we'll probably have the whole section on Administration finished and ready for ratification.

Jn

Why don't we create a troll I.D. and have someone play the troll, then A) we wouldn't know who it was B) if the I.D. gets banned the actor won't lose any privileges with his or her normal I.D.

Actually, I think the idea of a troll fire drill is kind of silly. Trolling will happen when we're open, we just have to remember not to take the troll seriously. Everything doesn't need a rule or system.

My dear Prim, no one is calling for us to open before the admin rules are in place. Or at least I certainly am not. To me its a question of opening when those rules are approved (hopefully a matter of weeks) or waiting until all of the other things that I mentioned are done to, which is certainly a matter of months.

I think of very good reasons for and against both options.

Thanks, Voronwe. I really hate sounding like I'm always sticking a broom handle in the wheels and letting the air out of the balloons and shouting "Whoa, there!" But I think things are moving faster than some people realize. When I first came to the board I distinctly remember someone posting, to apparent general agreement, that it would be great if we could be open by the end of 2005.

The board at that moment was about 40% of the size of this one, and the pressures on this larger board are different and stronger--another argument, I think, for finishing the most critical governance decisions while we're in a moment of stability, with the same group of people voting on successive decisions.

This useless post, which should and likely will be ignored by everyone, is solely for the purpose of expression my annoyance with having these sorts of issues constantly on the table. I constantly feel like the idea of getting a group of friends together on a messageboard - the only purpose I can legitimately see for this board - is being taken too seriously and thought of too delibaretely for what it is. Cuz really that's all this place is and likely ever will be - a group of friends hanging out together online.

Prim: I remember us talking about opening on our one-year-anniversary. That would be pretty kewl, but I know that's waaaay too far off for the majority of the people. So, yes, we are forging ahead nicely.

You're probably right Yova, but it certainly does no harm, and perhaps the people who are working hard on this will help to make it feel like that for everyone else?

I certainly hope so.

Alatar

Yov, let's get it built and then we can all play on it.

All we're trying to do is put something together that won't fall apart under pressure or devolve into chaos. If the structure is good enough, it should be low-maintenance and highly stable. That means that after this job is done, and if it's done right, almost all of us can get back to the reason we all came here, which is to talk with friends and enjoy ourselves. (There will be the occasional interruption to vote on something, or maybe do an admin stint or serve on a jury if we want to give something extra to the board, but that's the price we'll all pay for having some control over how this place is run.)

This situation right now is not permanent. The whole reason so many issues are being discussed is because we're trying to move quickly through the process. Investing time and thought now will pay off later.

Edit: So, Alatar, Aoife visits B77 too? She sure is a cutie-pie. What are her views on admin accountability? <waggles fingers at Aoife>

yovargas wrote:

I constantly feel like the idea of getting a group of friends together on a messageboard - the only purpose I can legitimately see for this board - is being taken too seriously and thought of too delibaretely for what it is. Cuz really that's all this place is and likely ever will be - a group of friends hanging out together online.

Yov, TORC, particularly the m00bies forum, was the place where I got together with a group of friends on a messageboard. For you, it was mostly the Manwe forum there. Neither of us go there to get together with friends any more. I honestly believe that that is because there was not an adequate system in place that was able to prevent the kind of misunderstandings and hard feelings that led to the alientation from TORC that many of us feel. I didn't leave TORC because I stopped liking the people there. I left TORC because I could not accept the way it was being run. I don't want to see that happen here, too.

Quote:

I didn't leave TORC because I stopped liking the people there. I left TORC because I could not accept the way it was being run. I don't want to see that happen here, too.

There is now way to avoid that.
Democracy for our purpose means majority rules. That will ensure unhappiness in some.

But hopefully not as much unhappiness as the monarchy caused. Otherwise, why are we bothering?

No. I don't think we will come close to the discontent the monarchy caused.

For some strange reason I went into TOR this afternoon and read all of the old threads from december 2004. I paid very close attention to one in particular "A discussion about TORC". In it, it seemed that TPTB were willing to work with the posters to end discord; transparency was discussed, the thread ended on a relatively positive note with Jonathan saying ....

Quote:

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for joining in the discussion. I'll be implementing those changes I outlined earlier. And yes, if you want to open a thread for discussion, you're open to do so. Let me just encourage you to be very open in communication (via email) with the mods and admins, though, and never post a "discussion" thread out of any knee-jerk frustration. We're always willing to listen...

Within three months over 20 people had been banned for "discussion".

What is being attempted here is without precedent. It may be clumsy and appear to be taking an inordinate amount of time ... but you know what? ... It's working and if we (I mean I!) can excercise a little patience the goal of Board77 as a democratic MB will be a reality.

ps: I read the Jury Room threads and to all of you.

Thank you.

And an extra for Jn.
What a remarkable woman you are!