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Inviting the whole "someday" list at once

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Nin
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Posted: Sun 10 Apr , 2005 10:17 pm
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Prim!

That never even came to my mind!

Please don't think of that - you made a gret job keeping the list updated, and I was very grateful for it, it helped me to keep track of who was wanted and for what reasons - and I still think that the persons on the list should be the first to be informed when the boards open.

Please, don't blame yourself on anything. Even strongly opposed to the idea, I don't blame anybody - discussion is the nature of this board and I am glad to have it.

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laureanna
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Posted: Sun 10 Apr , 2005 10:25 pm
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I think I'm the one who originally suggested we do the whole slug of people at once. My reasoning was that time can be saved if they are done in bulk, since so many of the actions involved in an invite are similar or identical for each person. I also suggested ways to split out work for volunteers to do.

Since listening to everyone else, I have changed my mind. Hey, if the Big V can do it, so can I. First of all, I thought this list was of people we wanted to invite starting April 1st or whenever the invites - as we knew them - opened up again. I thought their presence there was related to several members' expressed anxieties about wanting their friends here. I didn't know that this was, for some, a "someday when the board is bigger and we can handle them" type of list. I didn't know people were suggesting controversial people for discussion purposes only. And as I took a closer look, I saw that the list had very few people I knew so I have no idea how I'd vote for them. There are a few people I've been meaning to add to the list, but I never got around to it. Most of the people I enjoy posting with are already here. I saw the list as a looming, unfinished obligation and just thought a mass invite would be easier in the long run. Personally, I'd rather just wait a little while and then open the board to all. But we really do need to figure out who we are and where we are going, first. I don't know if it would be easier or harder to set the tone with those extra 70 people. The tone has already changed tremendously from the "old days" of the board.

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Voronwë_the_Faithful
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Posted: Mon 11 Apr , 2005 1:57 am
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I too have changed my mind, again. Clearly this idea won't work. Or rather, the obstacles to making it work are not likely to be gotten past (though I think that we could get past them, in an ideal world.) I'm sorry that I caused a ruckus by raising the issue (without even given credit to laureanna, who raised it before me, though I was unaware of the fact at the time).

So we are back to the question of "what do we need to do in order to Open?" As such, I am renaming this thread to match that question. And I will even give my answer to the question:

What do we need to do in order to Open?:

1. We need to determine how admins are selected and what the parameters of their duties are. We've made good progress on this and hopefully it can go to the membership soon.

2. We need to finalize our rules on dispute resolution including juries and an appeals court to review both juror and admin decisions. That's a big topic, but at least thanks mostly to Jn we have a big head start on it.

3. We need to agree on our raison d'être. This is to me the most important one. I feel that the discussion on this should from the beginning be membership-wide and not just concentrated in the convention.

4. We need to decide what will happen with the Thinking of England Forum when the board opens.

All of the things will take time to get resolved. I'm sure that there are a lot of people that have differing opinions from my own about all of these things, particularly the latter two. But on the other hand, I fear what will happen if we wait for all of these things to happen before letting any more people in.

Its a dilemna.


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Frelga
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Posted: Mon 11 Apr , 2005 4:53 pm
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Voronwe wrote:
All of the things will take time to get resolved. I'm sure that there are a lot of people that have differing opinions from my own about all of these things, particularly the latter two. But on the other hand, I fear what will happen if we wait for all of these things to happen before letting any more people in.
Voronwe, I think your list covers the most important points. I do feel that in resolving these issues one other thing should be conisered. What will happen to this board if we do NOT let any more people in for three months?


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TORN
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Posted: Mon 11 Apr , 2005 5:17 pm
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TheFormerlyUmlautedWonder wrote:
What do we need to do in order to Open?
Just open. I don't see the necessity of having all these issues resolved in advance. Just open and keep working on them and when they're resolved then whoever is here then can vote (assuming that's what people resolve to do) and go on with life. If we get a few trolls for which we don't have perfect procedures to deal with immediately, (1) we should develop temporarily thickened skin (and, as an aside, I feel compelled to mention that there is much too much thin skin around here, IMO, although perhaps it is simply a natural reaction of "walking wounded" [as someone else has described some of us]), (2) we should practice the old refrain, "Please don't feed the troll" (this worked surprisingly well most of the time at the largely unmodded board I had previously frequented), (3) we learn how best to deal with the question of trolls by watching them on our own site, and (4) we should not get too emotionally distraught if we in fact do not realize a huge flood of new posters.

As to mission statement, I don't see why the 180 or so people now are in any better of a position (practically as well as morally) to come up with one than would the 200 or 300 or 500 or 1000 people who may be here in a couple of months (I'm guessing closer to 300 than 1000, but I've been wrong once or twice before in my lifetime) when the groundwork has been laid to finalize this. [btw, I could see the argument back when this board consisted of the original 38, or some other "original" group, but IMO at least by the time I showed my ugly mug around here, I think the founders who could reasonably lay claim to a right to determine the direction of this board had already, as a practical matter, found themselves in the minority -- I'm not saying this to stick my long forked tongue out at them, as I actually can imagine that at least some of them probably mourn the decision to have quasi-opened this board as much as they already have, and at times I think they would be fully justified in thinking that] 180 is not a magic number. There is no magic time. There is only now.

Just open.


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Queen_Beruthiel
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Posted: Mon 11 Apr , 2005 5:42 pm
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I agree.

As to resolving disputes - pistols at dawn, or at least a punch-up in the back yard.

Trolls? Don't feed 'em.

Anything else? We can make it up as we go along.


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Sassafras
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Posted: Mon 11 Apr , 2005 6:08 pm
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TORN ... Just open

Yes. I like this.
The more we delay the more reasons can, and will, be found for why we can't open until this or that or this is resolved.

Kinda like waiting for the perfect time to have a baby. There is no perfect time.

My only questions concern the logistics of moving the board to our own space/place.

1) Is this anywhere near finalization? Time frame?

2) Is the board able to be moved in toto? What I mean is all of the relevent threads and member information.

3) Is there any advantage to moving a closed board as opposed to an open board?

4) The legalities of TOE. Have they been decided.
(Just reread Voronwe's post. Nothing has yet been decided)

Other than these I am in agreement with TORN. I seriously doubt that there will be a massive poster influx. I think that it is reasonable to expect 300 or so members once the first TORC rush (if indeed there even is one) has been assimilated.

Has the convention committee set themselves a deadline by which time most issues have to be resolved and put to a vote?

I don't forsee an immediate descent into ennui if we remain at 180 members but it does sometimes appear (to this observer) that we have a tendency to bog down in minutia.

:)


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Voronwë_the_Faithful
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Posted: Mon 11 Apr , 2005 6:26 pm
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Yeah, I think I am back on the "let's open now and continue to work out the details" bandwagon, particularly after the great and powerful TORN's great and powerful post. To answer Frelga's question, in my opinion what we risk in not letting people in for another three months is continuing to allow a reservoir of negative energy directed at board77 (in the form of resentment at the closednature of the board) to build up. Whether this poses a long term threat to the health of the board, I can't really say, but I fear that it does.


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TheEllipticalDisillusion
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Posted: Mon 11 Apr , 2005 7:07 pm
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So, how and when is this going to get decided? Do we vote? Does the convention decide? Etc.

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Frelga
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Posted: Mon 11 Apr , 2005 7:26 pm
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I just had a completely off-the-wall idea. I'll put it here just so I can study the flying patterns of lead balloons. :)

What if...

We let everybody register, and assign the new posters (if any) to a "Guest" group. That group will be able to read all forums except Invites and England, and only post in Welcome/Info or else in a separate Guest forum. The admins could process however many guests a week they can, say 10 (or whatever is manageable), giving them rigths to post elsewhere, and possibly ban any outright trolls who will not be able to resist making trouble.

Thoughts?


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Jnyusa
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Posted: Mon 11 Apr , 2005 7:29 pm
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See ... this is my problem with flinging our arms open wide.

B77 was set up to be run democratically. When it was <40 people, every vote was a binding vote. And everyone who didn't like the results of that vote started a new thread the following week and made everyone vote again. But that didn't matter when the board was just 40 people amusing themselves.

Now, with close to 150 members, we're supposed to vote on things, but we don't know who is empowered to start a binding vote, what constitutes a binding vote, whether we need a quorum to legitimize the vote or what constitutes a quorum.

We can have a board with just about any kind of governance we want, but we can't have a board with NO governance ... or maybe we can, as TORN says, just handle things as they come and not vote on anything ... but that then is a significant departure from the existing situation and who is authorized to make that change?

If people want, if there is a big outcry for some means of member decision-making, we can move the discussion of Binding Votes forward in the agenda. But it's still going to take a month, people, before we have ratification of a process.

I really throw my hands up when considering these options. Either the plan of the original members - to invite some people, design governance, open to the world - if that is going to be jettisoned in its entirety, which I consider to be a kind of mutiny - then I have no idea what we should move to instead, or how to do it.

Jn

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Primula_Baggins
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Posted: Mon 11 Apr , 2005 7:48 pm
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Can I just say that, as an admin, I don't just want but need rules to apply. We can go around throwing our weight around and doing what looks right to us, and right now it's working fine because B77 is relatively small and circumscribed, and the members are doing a reasonable job of being respectful to each other. I can see how someone might think that this would go one after we open, on a somewhat larger scale.

The thing is, there are already serious fault lines in this place because of different ideas about behavior, authority, privacy, civility, even where and how we can talk about TORC. Dump on top of this stressed structure an influx of new people, some of whom may bring with them deep old conflicts and problematic behavior, and are we going to be able to pull ourselves together well enough to design governance? Are the admins going to be able to handle the problems with almost no governance behind them, almost no rules, almost no clear expectations for poster behavior? When none of us even know what we want this place to be?

We at least need the basics in place--admin powers and dispute resolution, and at least an emerging idea of what B77 is supposed to be. That isn't going to happen this week. But please, let's not throw away the idea of this place because it won't.

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Eruname
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Posted: Mon 11 Apr , 2005 7:53 pm
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As a former admin, I agree with Prim. We need some sort of guidelines for rules so admins can know what they're supposed to do. I had a few issues where I was freaking out, not knowing what I could do since I didn't know what would make who mad. It's tough being given some job but not knowing how to do it. I would think we'd be in for some pretty big problems or blowouts if we opened the board and just voted on things as they came along.

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Nin
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Posted: Mon 11 Apr , 2005 8:00 pm
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Just as a poster and human being I agree too with the need of some rules.

Maybe not the whole constitution.... but the basic principles of authority.

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Queen_Beruthiel
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Posted: Mon 11 Apr , 2005 8:11 pm
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OK! OK! There is no mutiny. Only people suggesting stuff. Sometimes cutting through the Gordian knot turns out to be the cheap-and-dirty-and-therefore-best way, rather than picking and picking at the blasted thing.

But I have little interest in board politics, so I'll go back to discussing Dr. Who.


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Cerin
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Posted: Mon 11 Apr , 2005 8:26 pm
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What would people think of starting two separate threads to help clarify the issues here. In one thread people could delineate what they see as the potential benefits of opening the board before rules are in place, as well as the potential harm they see in keeping the board closed until rules are in place.

In the second thread, people could delineate what they see as the potential benefits of keeping the board closed until rules are in place, as well as the potential harm they see in opening the board before rules are in place.

We could then summarize these potential harms/benefits for easier comparison, to help people get a better grasp of what is at stake.

Being someone who thrives in an ordered environment and has an aversion to chaos, I would rather keep the board closed until some rules are in place.

Edit
Or here's a drastic suggestion. How about effectively closing b77 until the rules are in place. That is, make all forums but Business and Jury Rooms read only until those aspects of the Constitution we need in place in order to open, are put in place? In other words, force everyone to concentrate on getting the board open.

Last edited by Cerin on Mon 11 Apr , 2005 8:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Mon 11 Apr , 2005 8:29 pm
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Queen B - :D

The problem with mutiny is that we can't even figure out who the Captain is, or what wheel turns the thing .... or anything!

I was musing earlier - how would you do it exactly? Hold Prim hostage until she enabled you with an admin panel, and then let everyone in?

Even then, someone has to register before you can let them in ... how would people know that a mutiny was in progress? Would Prim be allowed to eat crackers and peanut butter while we waited for the hordes to arrive ...?

It's all too funny, you see. There's simply no way to get from 'where we are now' to 'over there' in one simple step.

Jn

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TORN
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Posted: Mon 11 Apr , 2005 8:34 pm
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Didn't mean to roil things up too much, and I certainly know the value of rules (heck, I've spent the last 8 years doing nothing but writing & interpreting rules) -- perhaps it's just some of my personal biases that (1) the internet is the venue for free & unfettered communications, and it seems we are spending a long time figuring out what constraints we should put around that free & unfettered communications; (2) the more detailed rulemaking becomes to effectively deal with situations that you can foresee in the rulemaking process, the less effective it becomes in dealing with situations you can't foresee; and (3) the degree to which one should work toward perfection has a positive correlation with the importance of the matter in which you seek perfection -- which is to say, if you're talking about crimes of murder or punishments like life in prison or the death penalty, you never stop striving for perfection; when it's a matter of continuing interpersonnel relationships through a largely anonymous media among highly imperfect people, you go with your best shot but trust to people to understand that its a work in process that every person should have a hand in (or at least an opportunity to have a hand in, recognizing my own sad and pathetic lack of real assistance in all this) throughout the life of the community, to understand that it will always be an imperfect system no matter how much you twiddle with it, and to understand that each of our imperfections will cause us from time to time to spew venom when we ought not or to take offense when we ought not.

I'm not opposed to waiting some for a basic framework to be in place (because, as I said in my previous post, there is no magic time -- and that includes the notion that this very instant is not necessarily the magic moment for the opening of this Board, either), but lets not try to open the perfect board.


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Eruname
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Posted: Mon 11 Apr , 2005 8:39 pm
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Cerin wrote:
Or here's a drastic suggestion. How about effectively closing b77 until the rules are in place. That is, make all forums but Business and Jury Rooms read only until those aspects of the Constitution we need in place in order to open, are put in place? In other words, force everyone to concentrate on getting the board open.
Interesting idea :), but a huge, definate no from me. I come online to relax. This is the only message board I go to. Take away that and I personally won't have anything else to do online. It's the fun stuff here that gives me the incentive to get down to business.
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.

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laureanna
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Posted: Mon 11 Apr , 2005 8:39 pm
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Let's say we open the site to the public tomorrow, and a certain person from TORC comes over here and starts posting hurtful things, just to see how far our limits are before we have to react. Do we know what are limits are? Do we know what we can do to stop this kind of behavior, other than ignore it? The damage will be done to some of our people, even if we do ignore the troll. Some people will leave because they can't take the attacks. Others will leave because they are upset that no one will defend them. Some people will be unable to counter-troll and will fan the flames. Others will beg them to stop. Admins will be damned-if-they-do-and-damned-if-they-don't.

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

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