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Lidless
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Posted: Sun 05 Jun , 2005 10:38 pm
Als u het leven te ernstig neemt, mist u de betekenis.
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Edit: Damn Idyll, you mentioned 2001.

Idyll,

:LMAO: :LMAO:

That recording is four years out of date.

(2001: A Space Odyssey, for those of you who didn't recognize the quote.)

I like how your mind works - the older brother I never had.

Jny, I would have liked you as an older sister.

OK, for me, I concede the Tolkien element. It should be inserted. After all, it is that commonality that brought us together, and the people the community will be most comfortable with in terms of 'new recruits'.

We will never become this all-incompassing, all-inclusive messageboard without losing the homely feel. To become too successful in attracting everyone will ultimately lead to the demise of that feel.

We need to be limited in order to have a common bond that transcends all else.

Let's keep to our niche and revel in that.

Know who you are.

So taking that, and Frelga's comments into account:

"To create the most pleasant environment for lovers of Tolkien's works - an egalitarian community both on the internet and in real life."

I remember the first thing we talked about when debating having our own site was an art gallery and essays specifically about Tolkien.

You're right, everyone. I lost focus.





And for those of you who never noticed: Take HAL and increase each letter by one, you get IBM. Strenously denied by Arthur C. Clarke as deliberate, but it's too much of a coincidence for me.

Last edited by Lidless on Sun 05 Jun , 2005 10:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Voronwë_the_Faithful
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Posted: Sun 05 Jun , 2005 10:40 pm
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Voronwe_the_Faithful wrote:
I have never seen any of this artist's work before. It is quite imposing.
Other then that that picture is on the cover of my beaten up old paperback copy of the Silmarillion. :roll: Though in my defense, most of the vividly colorful wave is cut out of the picture on the cover, which is largley washed out in general.

Sassy, that's a great picture that you have now.

Last edited by Voronwë_the_Faithful on Sun 05 Jun , 2005 10:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Sassafras
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Posted: Sun 05 Jun , 2005 10:51 pm
through the looking glass
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Voronwe_the_Faithful wrote:
Sassy, that's a great picture that you have now.
Yes. And absolutely fraught with symbolism! :D

Alas, I shall have to change it.

The Balrog has seen the light!

:banana:


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Jnyusa
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Posted: Sun 05 Jun , 2005 10:52 pm
One of the Bronte Sisters
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Strenously denied by Arthur C. Clarke as deliberate

Ack! He just didn't want to be sued by IBM. Of course it was deliberate. He got lucky that it made a plausible name.

So ... who remembers the days when guys on roller skates changed the vacuum tubes?

Liddy, it's never too late to have an older sister, or a younger brother! That's the one prerogative of adopted children - we can pick our own families and add to them whenever we want. It's turnaround and fair play. :)

Jn

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halplm
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Posted: Sun 05 Jun , 2005 11:44 pm
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I did not write that text, jnyusa, it was written by others. I was trying to further express my disdain for mission statements in general. I leave it to you to recognize where it came from.

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Mon 06 Jun , 2005 1:16 am
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Aha.

Well .... aren't you glad I said no?

:D

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halplm
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Posted: Mon 06 Jun , 2005 4:24 pm
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I have an objection to how the Mission Statement has been developed.

I never wanted any part of writing up the rules and regulations that are going to govern this board, mostly because I don't think they will ever effect me, and if they do, I'll probably be leaving. So I didn't join the "convention" or whatever it's called.

However, there was no mention of this small group of people writing the board's "mission statement." By the time I was even aware it was being written, it had gotten to the point where virtually no new input was taken. All the arguments had been made, and the response to all the input was... "well a significant number of people wanted it this way." Yeah, well, I didn't get to make my case to that significant number.

The Rules and regulations will effect few, and once the site is open, aside from getting new members, hopefully they will mostly be unecessary.

The Mission Statement effects everyone, the very board itself, and accordingly, should have had input from everyone from the very beginning. It's the type of thing that shouldn't have even been talked about by the convention, but by the whole board.

I guess it's too late now, and most people probably won't care, but then again, most people haven't been banned from a site they cared about deeply because of issues with that site's mission statement.

For the record: I won't be voting on any of the proposed mission statements, as I think the pretty much suck. It's lost all meaning from arguing and people getting too close to it. It's trying to do too much, and not enough at the same time.

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Eruname
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Posted: Mon 06 Jun , 2005 4:31 pm
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Hal, I think of the committee writing the mission statement like the founding fathers writing the preamble to the constitution.

It's been difficult enough just for the committee people to come up with something workable and they most certainly did solicit for feedback from the membership, so I'm not quite understanding where you're coming from. They wanted to get ideas from everyone and incorporate what people wanted...even simplified versions from I think either Holby or Alatar. Jn's really the only one who has managed to keep track of who's proposed what.

Now you don't want a mission statement at all, but a lot of people do. I don't see how there can be much of a compromise there.

I also think the proposed mission statements are far less restrictive than that other site's vision. They're much more open and promote fairness and equality.

edit: Feedback about the mission statement was requested on May 24th, the exact day that the committee started to talk about the mission statement...nearly two weeks ago.

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halplm
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Posted: Mon 06 Jun , 2005 4:50 pm
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I don't believe there were stickies abou it, as I thought I replied as soon as I saw it, which was on May 29th.

I'm not opposed to having a mission statement, I just don't think there is any benefit to having one.

People already here don't need one, we're guiding this place ourselves, we don't need a statement to tell us how to do so.

People who aren't already here aren't going to see a mission statement we write and think "oh, I want to join this board." There's nothing we could write that would do that.

A mission statement is confining. It removes an element of control of the board. What if someone in six months wants to start a topic saying they think democracy doesn't work for a message board? Well, how many people do you think are going to jump into that thread saying "check the mission statement, now get lost if you don't like it."

I would hope none, but they could, because that's the mission statement.

I find it hugely ironic that this board is going to have a mission statement at all. It was started to discuss a petition that had serious problems with another site's "mission statement/vision/whatever," and now we want one of our own that is just as likely to cause similar problems down the road.

People coming to our board don't want a mission statement, they want a historical statement. Mission statements define who we are and constrain what we will be on this board. Historical statements define what we were to this point, allowing complete freedom to be anything we want in the future.

The first has no place in the Board77 that I joined.

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Eruname
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Posted: Mon 06 Jun , 2005 5:28 pm
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Quote:
Our conversations cover any topic of interest to our members, from current events and philosophy to fine arts and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. We aspire to maintain a culture of respect, equality and openness.
How is that confining hal?
hal wrote:
People who aren't already here aren't going to see a mission statement we write and think "oh, I want to join this board." There's nothing we could write that would do that.
I don't think we know that yet. ;)
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What if someone in six months wants to start a topic saying they think democracy doesn't work for a message board? Well, how many people do you think are going to jump into that thread saying "check the mission statement, now get lost if you don't like it."

I would hope none, but they could, because that's the mission statement.
That's not correct. The proposed mission statement says that someone can start that topic if they like. I don't think the people here will have that reaction. I think they'd welcome a good debate.
Quote:
I find it hugely ironic that this board is going to have a mission statement at all. It was started to discuss a petition that had serious problems with another site's "mission statement/vision/whatever," and now we want one of our own that is just as likely to cause similar problems down the road.
That's not correct either. Yes, many of the original members here didn't like J&T's vision, but we weren't going to dispute that. If that's the way they want it then they have every right to have it. The problem was the inconsistency of enforcing that vision and the rules they had in place, not seeming to recognize cultural differences, and not striving for fairness and equality.
Quote:
Mission statements define who we are and constrain what we will be on this board. Historical statements define what we were to this point, allowing complete freedom to be anything we want in the future.
I believe the proposed mission statement is quite open and free and will allow this board to continue to evolve as it's been doing since it was opened.

I don't personally need a mission statement either, but I don't think the one proposed is going to do any damage or be limiting.

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Voronwë_the_Faithful
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Posted: Mon 06 Jun , 2005 6:30 pm
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Hal, almost half of this thread (over 200 posts) has been dedicated to getting member imput on the Mission Statement. There were additional threads started in both the turf forum and the symposium. There was a global announcement up for over a week. There were repeated calls for member input made by different committee members, including Cerin, Holby, Jnyusa and myself. There was in fact all told more discussion by the membership about the Mission Statement then all of the other convention topics put together. The committee did its very best to incorporate the concepts that a broad cross-section of the membership indicated was important to them. I really don't see what more you think we could have done to solicit and incorporate member input.

We will be locking this thread once all the ratification discussion threads are all up, but we will include a link to each of them here. We are going to try to clean up the business room as much as possible so that things are as clear as possible for the members, since there will be an abundance of ratification discussions and votes over the next few weeks.


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Eruname
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Posted: Mon 06 Jun , 2005 6:56 pm
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Voronwe_the_Faithful wrote:
We are going to try to clean up the business room as much as possible
Thanks for that! Things are getting quite tangled in here again! :P

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halplm
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Posted: Mon 06 Jun , 2005 7:53 pm
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Look, I look at this board every day, and I didn't know about this until most of the discussion was over, and people were arguing over semantics. I didn't know about it until there were global stickies.

Topics like "What is B77's Mission" do not, to me, translate directly into "help us write our mission statement." I never looked in that specific thread because I thought it was a question, not a "lets decide what it is" topic.

Maybe I'm the only one who "missed" it. Maybe I'm the only one that disagrees, etc. In which case, I'll just shut up about it.

The proposed mission statement is ok. I disagree strongly with using "democratic" and "J.R.R. Tolkien." As I think those are both exclusionary statements.

If people want somethign done, they'll read the charter and see how democratic we are. If people look at the forums, they'll see we have a Tolkien Forum. They don't need that information in the mission statement.

I realize I'm arguing with no one, as everyone who's aparently authorized to make such decisions isn't listening any more, but those aspects do not belong in our "mission." The rest, basically "We post about what we want, and we respect each other doing it," does belong... See my very very first comment on it in this thread.

I don't have a problem being associated with Tolkien, of course, or of being democratic, it's just NOT OUR MISSION.

Of course, this gets back to me not even thinking we HAVE a mission, so I guess I'll leave it at that...


EDIT: One final comment... The need for and eventual approval of a mission statement, WILL make me come here less often. I have no desire to be a part of any board with a mission, even as open and free as this one appears to be. Just stating this as a fact, I don't mean anything negative about anyone here, or the board.

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Eruname
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Posted: Mon 06 Jun , 2005 7:59 pm
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halplm wrote:
EDIT: One final comment... The need for and eventual approval of a mission statement, WILL make me come here less often. I have no desire to be a part of any board with a mission, even as open and free as this one appears to be. Just stating this as a fact, I don't mean anything negative about anyone here, or the board.
Why hal? That just doesn't make sense to me. And this board doesn't appear to be free. It is.

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halplm
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Posted: Mon 06 Jun , 2005 8:06 pm
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I meant the mission statement, not the board.

The board is free, that's part of my point. Nothing in that mission statement really applies, because we basically do whatever we want...

Actually, the respect part is only temporary too, as as soon as we open, there will be people here who I don't respect, and probably people here I greatly dislike.

We have no mission, pretending we do is what bugs me.

It shouldn't bother me this much, but the more I think about it, the more it does. I don't want to be on a board that has a mission. ANY mission.

It's not going to make me leave, but I'm going to have to learn to ignore it. And the minute it's pointed to for ANY reason might make me leave...

EDIT: I'm not trying to get anythign out of you guys, just trying to explain my position. I think somewhere along the line, people lost sight of the whole point of this place (not it's mission) and got caught up in building the site up... which apparently means it needs a mission, which it doesn't.

Last edited by halplm on Mon 06 Jun , 2005 8:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Eruname
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Posted: Mon 06 Jun , 2005 8:08 pm
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Well I for one don't want you to leave and definately think you should always hang around. :) :hug:

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halplm
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Posted: Mon 06 Jun , 2005 8:10 pm
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That's just it, I don't want to leave either, but this is the first thing that has made me think something here might make me want to leave.

I suppose I can always go start my own board... and sit there all alone posting how evil PJ is...

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Eruname
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Posted: Mon 06 Jun , 2005 8:35 pm
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halplm wrote:
I suppose I can always go start my own board... and sit there all alone posting how evil PJ is...
:LMAO:

You could always invite Iavas. =:)

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Primula_Baggins
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Posted: Mon 06 Jun , 2005 9:15 pm
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Hal, if you look things over you will see how impossible it is for anything to happen to you here like what happened to you at the other place. Go look at the list of things you can be banned for. That's it—that's all you can be banned for. And none of those things look like much fun to me. :P

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halplm
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Posted: Mon 06 Jun , 2005 9:32 pm
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Being banned has nothing to do with it. It's a mentality, that this board is more important than it is because it has a "mission."

This board, just like ANY board, is only as valuable as its posters. TORC placed it's vision ahead of its posters and it all fell apart.

Just having a "mission statement" provides an opportunity for the "mission" to be put ahead of a poster. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but who knows what the future will bring. Just having the mission statement implies that the board is something that it's not, at least to me.

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