board77

You sure Holby? Im not sure thats very clear

It will cause more problems than it will solve. If people around here can't wait until the process is complete, then just throw open the doors rather than go through inviting again. I hope the invite thing is done once and for all.

laureanna wrote:

Would it be easier to do one huge lump per week than to do 2 or 3 a day? When they dribble in, I have trouble remembering whom I've reviewed already.

Speaking from the perspective of a former admin, I'd say dribbling in is MUCH easier! I'd guestimate that it takes maybe up to 10 minutes to activate a user.

First an admin sees the user has registered. They then go move the invite thread (or delete it now I guess). Next they go to manage the user and activate the account. Next they have to go in and manually set all the permissions. Go back to the user list, find the poster's email address, go to the admin email account, send off the account activated email. Move the sent copy of the email to the sent activations folder...then go back to B77 and update the admin thread keeping track of what has been done.

That's a fair bit to do and I remember processing a few registrations at a time and being somewhat surprised at the amount of time it took. A huge lump of registrations would just be awful for the admin so I can't say that I think that would be a good idea.

I think Jn's compromise is probably the best. I voted no though because it's the easier way.

How close is the Constitution to being ratified? If it is only maybe three or so weeks away, I don't see what the point in inviting more people. If the board is still months away from being opened, then I'd say let's restart the invite process if that is what people really want. I know there are some posters I'd like to see here, but none I am dying to see. I still don't know more than half of the posters here and personally, I'd like to get to know more people here before adding in new ones whom I probably don't know.

I haven't voted yet. I am waiting to find out the status of the Constitution if anyone knows. So basically my question on the Constitution is: how far along are we, one month away or several?

TED, my best guess would be two months minimum, maybe much more.

yovargas wrote:

An idea: we pick a set number (say, three per day) and do a random raffle to put up invites for people in the "Who we want to invite" thread.

Thinking about this, I think it could create a lot more problems than it would solve. Just imagine how it would look from the outside.

If we were to pick three per day perhaps we should prioritise. There's got to be a difference between "Well I haven't seen such-and-such for a while..." and "I'm desperate to see so-and-so again; being seperated by our messageboards is driving a real wedge between our friendship" and "Whoserface should be here; she can help us write the constitution!"

Perhaps we could just trust people to be sensible about it... ...but then again maybe not.

*~Pips~*

If we were to restart the inviting process then I'd say go the whole way and not have a limit. We're already limiting who can join and who can't, why put more restrictions?

Even if there was 1 invitation per member, say, not everyone wants any more members, or maybe several people would want one particular person - so therefore there wouldn't be as many invitees as there are current posters.

And if there were a lot of people up for being activated as members, they can just wait until those who were voted in before them were activated. At least that way they'd know they weren't just being shunned... if that was a problem for them.

Quote:

At least that way they'd know they weren't just being shunned... if that was a problem for them.

Trust me, I'll bet it would be. If I'd met any resistance, if Rodia hadn't started my thread and slipped me in just before the end, then I'm damn sure you wouldn't be talking to me today. If you'd told me I had to wait until my name was pulled out of a hat I'd have told you where you could stick it. Hoever this is handled, it should not be luck-of-the-draw. That reduces posters to little more than numbers.

*~Pips~*

I voted "Yes". There are people who aren't here who deserve to be here, and sooner rather than later. If the constitution is really at least two months away from being ratified, as V said, there's just no question in my mind.

I still think inviting everyone at once would be best.

- It would take less time to do all the initial paper work, and would lend itself to the use of non-admin helpers.
- Signups would still dribble in, because it takes some people longer than others.
- Even if they all signed up at the same time, they would be warned that it would take a few days to process everyone.
- They'd all have the benefit of a month and a half or whatever to be part of the constitutional process.
- It would be less confusing for the general membership to figure out who they've already reviewed - they could just spend one whole evening commenting on those they knew, then a few days later, reviewing threads and voting on everyone they knew. These new invites are less well known to everyone, so each of us will probably be interested in no more than 10 threads.
- No one would get their feelings hurt (any more than usual).

Eru wrote:

First an admin sees the user has registered. They then go move the invite thread (or delete it now I guess). Next they go to manage the user and activate the account. Next they have to go in and manually set all the permissions. Go back to the user list, find the poster's email address, go to the admin email account, send off the account activated email. Move the sent copy of the email to the sent activations folder...then go back to B77 and update the admin thread keeping track of what has been done.

Streamlined version:
Get alert from sponsor that invitee has registered. Next go to manage the user and activate the account. Next go in and manually set all the permissions. Then forward email set up by sponsor with the account activated info and move the sent copy of the email to the sent activations folder. Sponsors and helpers will do the rest.

I'm willing to help out.

laureanna wrote:

Streamlined version:
Get alert from sponsor that invitee has registered. Next go to manage the user and activate the account. Next go in and manually set all the permissions. Then forward email set up by sponsor with the account activated info and move the sent copy of the email to the sent activations folder.

That's really no different than to what is done right now. Admins already are alerted to someone registering by getting an email. Having a sponsor alert an admin isn't going to cut any time off the actual process of manually setting up the user. The admins also already have an email that they send off so no need for sponsor's to set up an email.

Quote:

Sponsors and helpers will do the rest.

The rest of what?

It's awesome that people want to help, but unless they're granted temporary admin powers I'm not sure there's a whole lot they can do unfortunately.

Keep it simple, keep it closed. Newcomers would have a right to join the constitutional congress, and that would blast its limits.

If we add 70 new people all at once, we would definitely have to revote on the definition of a quorum in the constitutional convention.

I see that there is a slight majority in favor of opening the boards again, but at a limited number of invites per day/week. That we could handle because we'll be ready for the first ratification vote before very long (I think, I hope). But if the board increases by something like 30% all at once, we'll have to re-do the ratification rules.

I really do not want to do that. It's hard enough to make progress without having the situation change constantly under our feet.

Is it so hard to ask people to be patient?

Jn

I voted no, and will be pretty disappointed if any version of the old invite system is restored.

No it's not Jn. I feel like we should make sure we do things right the first time instead of constantly redoing them. Redoing procedures and votes is highly annoying...we've experienced that with the invite procedures. I'd just like to push forward with the convention. Maybe it's time for you to crack your whip!

Of course we can ask people to be patient (and I am not seeing a big wave of approval for reopening invites, either). But it's also important that people who've been concerned about this issue know that it's being considered and discussed.

However, becoming an admin has made me much more conscious of how little structure and procedure we actually have in place at this point. A big influx of people now could swamp the system we have. It would also be more likely that a major conflict could arise that we would not have the structure to handle effectively. Something like that could shatter this board, or at the very least cause a lot of bad feeling.

I was undecided on this issue at first, although my gut reaction was to reopen the invites. There are many people absent from this board who would be assets here, and there have been times I have felt things were slowing down too much and could use an injection of new blood. But, after reading all the comments here, I have decided, with great reluctance, to vote no. I think there are more important things to deal with right now, and the invite process itself is fraught with problems.

I am more than willing to trust in the judgment of the constitution committee, and will support reopening, in whatever form, when they feel enough of the board structure has been put in place to deal with the issues of opening.

Eru: Maybe it's time for you to crack your whip!

Hm ... I don't have a whip but I have a very sharp pencil.

I could

or



Jn

p.s. thank you, tinwe

You can borrow mine:

kewl

Jn