TW Council - UPDATED w/ structure

[Spock!]

I'm in for running for Council....Somebody needs to represent the Pub player in the midst of a bunch of League players....

Spock, The Voice of Pub.

[Shaddowknight]

IMO this is a major step forward for the zone. Ideally all positions, both the staff and players, would be elected positions. This would then make everyone responsible for the decisions they make but I guess the ‘good ol boy’ staff culture won’t allow this.

Many, many details have not been revealed on how this will work so it is hard to pass judgment on it. While the 49%-51% split is a bit worrisome I have been in several partnerships where it worked out because all parties were good people. While it can be abused it will be quite obvious when it is. I know several people on staff that do actually have balls/backbones and I cannot imagine that they could be strong-armed into voting a certain way if they really felt strongly on the topic.

Of course there is no information on how long people are allowed to hold these positions of influence or how they might be removed (surely people would not be axed because they voted certain ways). Although I understand Qan's reservations about meetings I am still unsure how topics get presented, opinions solicited, and how the voting takes place. For example; is voting held open for several days to make sure everyone votes? How do people come up to speed on the topics? Can people abstain from a vote? What happens in cases of ties (people not present or have abstained)?

The first step in improving the existing staff structure has now taking form. It may or may not be too late but it certainly can’t hurt at this point. Instead of folks all bitching about it let ask good questions and get this thing flushed out the best we can.
eph

From the top: We aren't entirely sure on how things will work or what we will actually working on either (at least when I had asked qan about it, I still need to talk to M_M and Demonic about that).
I would guess that people will be removed if they become inactive or completely uncooperative, at the vote of enough of the rest of council. qan mentioned working on a bot to help monitor meetings (and stop us from getting stuck on a single topic) and such, so I would assume much of the topic list/voting will be done with that. Forums will likely be used to keep track of past/future information, as well as voting stats. As for how voting and some other things will go, a meeting of the staff core will probably be meeting soon to set the basics, which we can then change as we feel is needed.

Staff structure has already changed significantly. I am likely going to be announcing it tomorrow or Thursday (sorry, been lazy with the second coming of the Ice Age upon America.)

[kthx]

Again staffs ideas of "completely uncooperative" is just about as fucking loose as all the other loosely written language you have in the rules that you tend to ban people for. A vote from enough of the rest of the council being what, 15/18, 12/18 or.. 9/18. Also what if staff feels that x player is making it hard for their agenda to get passed with the kangaroo court idea, do they just get rid of the player and remove him from the council because fuck it your staff? I think important things like that need to be addressed and no more of that bullshit "interpretative rules" thing that has become commonplace among this zone as it leads to corruption and other bullshit.

[Reckful]

Personally if he puts personal hate towards certain staffers aside and focuses on the topics presented I think LF would be a good candidate.

[qan]

Of course there is no information on how long people are allowed to hold these positions of influence or how they might be removed (surely people would not be axed because they voted certain ways). Although I understand Qan's reservations about meetings I am still unsure how topics get presented, opinions solicited, and how the voting takes place.

As Eph's pointed out, yes, much remains to be decided. I could have written up a complete system for this (as I did for TWPS) -- but I already know how I imagine it running, and am interested in how everyone else would like this to work. That's not a cop-out; it's a genuine interest in making this a useful mechanism for change in the zone. I'm not confident in my ability to do this alone, and I don't think I'd trust anyone who is. That said, we do have a small number of things decided -- things that, in all likelihood, will be able to be changed by council vote if it turns out they don't work for the good of the zone, or at least don't in the opinion of the Council.

We have a chance here to do something that will actually break some of the gridlock in zone policy, an effect I've affectionately referred to as "staff being afraid of its own shadow."

I think important things like that need to be addressed and no more of that bullshit "interpretative rules" thing that has become commonplace among this zone as it leads to corruption and other bullshit.

Agreed, Warkster. All these things need to be addressed. Please keep bringing them up. Most of this I've discussed or at least thought about before, but not openly.

Here are some of the questions brought up in this thread so far.

1. What constitutes a majority?
2. What is considered quorum (min # members for the meeting to be valid)?
3. How is someone removed from the Council, whether player or staff?
4. How do we prevent staff abuse/rank strong-arming?
5. How long is a term on Council? For players? For staff?
6. How are new motions/topics of discussion presented?
7. Is there a time of deliberation after they are presented?
8. Can members abstain from a vote?
9. What is the scope of Council?

In the next post I'll give you what I'm imagining the answer will be to each, but that's not representative of what will actually be the case. This is all TBD. Thoughts appreciated. If you have a second and would like to answer the questions yourself, that would also be very helpful.

[LF]

Personally if he puts personal hate towards certain staffers aside and focuses on the topics presented I think LF would be a good candidate.

I don't really hate anybody on staff, except maybe loki/hurricane but I don't think he's staff anymore. I just think the majority of you are far too green/inexperienced/young/useless to be considered decision makers. With that said I have zero desire to participate in this so don't even include me on any ballets or whatever you plan to use to vote people in. If I stop getting blacklisted for always being right then I'll consider hosting again, but until then I'm perfectly content just playing twd, chatting and making fun of primary because of his skin color/lack of education.

[qan]

Here's how I imagine some of these questions being resolved. Again, in no way binding. This is just my personal opinion. I expect there to be oversights, problems and other unforeseen bits of ugliness.


1. What constitutes a majority?
Probably a majority of 2. We could always experiment with different numbers -- 1, or 3, or a percentage. You need to win by this majority to pass. So with 18 members all attending (unlikely) you could have 10 for, 8 against and pass. 9 for, 8 against and 1 abstaining would not pass. Majority of 2 would keep things moving somewhat slowly, but still efficiently enough -- not recklessly. This is especially important w/ lower attendance.

2. What is considered quorum (min # members for the meeting to be valid)?
Quorum (min # members needed to pass a motion) is usually 50-60%. I would go for somewhere in there -- lower because it's a video game and not everyone will be around, higher because that means better decision-making. Tweak it like a car. Or a bot. Heh.

3 & 4. How do we prevent staff abuse/rank strong-arming? How is someone removed from the Council, whether player or staff?
We need to have a system set up for reviewing the actions of a Council member (or members of staff or the community) using inappropriate means to influence a vote. Some kind of review -- possibly the Council minus any involved parties, or a special review board set up ahead of time just in case of such unfortunate incidents. The same goes for removing someone. I would prefer not to see the Council or staff remove someone from Council, though, but rather a vote be taken by the community (personally). If they aren't doing anything against the rules, disrupting the process, and are participating, there's little to complain about.

5. How long is a term on Council? For players? For staff?
I'm guessing players will be the first to have terms. 2-3 months? 1 month is far too brief. Longer than 3 months and you're likely to see people who go MIA and have to be removed. As to whether staff (and Chair) will have terms, I'd like to see that, personally, but I'm guessing that won't come up for awhile, and that the various departments will be represented by a changing cast of members anyhow.

6 & 7. How are new motions/topics of discussion presented? Is there a time of deliberation after they are presented?
In the world at large, typically, the meeting in which a motion is presented isn't the meeting that the motion is voted on. So you are either submitting new motions, discussing new or old/tabled motions, or voting on old motions. If you think that a motion still hasn't been discussed enough, or there are unresolved issues, you can table it until the next meeting. Thinking of a very pared-down version of Robert's Rules of Order, for those of you who are familiar. Adapted to spaceships. I'd also like to see forums as a component of discussion. Public, ideally -- maybe only viewable by public, to keep them from getting cluttered, but transparent discussion among members nonetheless? PMs and messages would still be available for private discussion of ideas. Also, in my mind, all Council meetings should be open to the public, but only Council members with the floor can speak (thus the need for the bot to quickly grant time and keep things moving), unless someone from the audience has been invited by a member of the Council to give testimony. This is again for efficiency. Rambling discussion with Council members should be done outside the meetings themselves... IMO. I would prefer to have more meetings, but very short and efficient ones, instead of long meetings you can only endure once every couple of months. Serious, thoughtful and long-winded discussion probably best taken to the forum anyhow, where people can really think out their ideas before presenting them.

8. Can members abstain from a vote?
Yes. In my mind this would not count against majority needed to pass a motion, though. If 9 abstain, a 5-4 vote would not pass (if we were going with needing a majority of 2 votes).

9. What is the scope of Council?
I don't know.

[kthx]

1.Majority is 14 votes, that means if staff or players are trying to strongarm the vote they have to convince half of the other side +1 on the argument.
2.For an in person meeting, minimum of 10, must be five from each branch.
3.Removal from the council would be determined by not logging in for a two week period without a reason why, failure to vote or comment on subjects up for discussion, or for personal attacks against any member of the council on either side.
4.An agreement that whatever is decided is decided and that staff must take all possible measures to implement the change immediately, and also removal from the council for attempts to silence another member of the council with threats or disciplinary action.
5. Three months, then up for reelection from the general populace, this ensures too much time doesn't pass without actual changes. Same for staff and players.
6. Everyone on the council writes their top 3 problems with the zone, keep a tally and the problems with the most people suggesting them is the first place to start. If 18 peoples problems are all fixed then you can start asking the community.
7. Presented, one at a time, one week period to get opinions in on the subject, vote, and then a one week time period for staff to enforce the changes or get the ball rolling if its dev related, anything voted and passed is top priority and is the only thing dev works on during that time other than regular maintenance. During the staff portion of the time period there will be another subject up for vote.
8. Members can only abstain from a vote if by voting if it were something that might impact them or their squad positively. For instance if someone suggested no resolution caps in twld and you know you would gain a huge advantage on it because your starting lineup all have newer age monitors etc.
9. To list and solve the zones problems, one at a time, with speed and urgency.

[roxxkatt]

how do you plan to prevent the general population from having apathetic feelings resulting in them not voting, allowing cliques of idiots to vote in other idiots?

[qan]

how do you plan to prevent the general population from having apathetic feelings resulting in them not voting, allowing cliques of idiots to vote in other idiots?

Don't know if we can escape apathy, but I was thinking that rather than voting for 1 or 2 people, considering the # of votes will be fairly small, allowing people to +1, 0 or -1 on each person. No limits. If you want to -1 everyone or +1 everyone, great. Thanks for voting.

Still thinking about how to make voting work securely, though. Few different options.

[wicket666]

I can help add me as player I vote fairly and will not gain from it.
1.wicket666

[Ephemeral]

Qan,

1. The staff are assigned/represent certain aspects of the zone (Dev/TWL/PR etc.), will the players also have these assignments?
2. What significance do these assignments have? In other words, if everyone has a single vote that counts the same, what empowerment/responsibilities makes someone be a part of a specific group?
3. You should have a mission statement (purpose or objective of the Council) and then either a procedural or policy document. If you don’t get this stuff down on paper it will morph and get twisted by various interests as time goes by. It also needs to include a statement that whatever the Council decides becomes the ‘law’, period. The council shouldn’t become something that that simply makes ‘recommendations’.
4. I assume that the council operate at a policy or procedural level ONLY. In other words, a council member wouldn’t be voting on a ban or silencing someone specific. Again, the scope of the council needs to be much further defined.
5. You will need to define and adhere to a standard time frame for presenting and voting on topics. If you don’t, it opens the door for a person to shove something through ‘while the time is right’ and they have the votes they need.
6. Forums and online TW-based meetings aren’t ideal mediums for collaboration but unless the group is willing to use something like TeamMeeting I am not sure how else to present ideas and solicit opinions. I can certainly see there being a public/private component to this process. Public opinion is certainly important but the Council should have greater vision and understanding of what is best for the zone and may need to make decisions that aren’t necessarily popular.
7. New ideas and items bought up for vote need to follow a specific format that includes some kind of cost/benefit kind of analysis and metrics. If you don’t insist on this people will just start floating ‘ideas’ for vote with little effort. Bringing new things to the table for a vote should require someone to do their homework. The council is not a brain trust or some freeform brain storming group; it should be an mechanism that deals with the hard operational decisions of the zone in the context of its mission statement.
8. How Council members are hired/fired/join/leave is of the utmost importance and needs to be highly defined and documented.
9. Only once all of these (and all the other issues and questions that have been raised in this thread are answered) should anyone be solicited to be on the council. Why would anyone agree to join up when this much stuff is still not defined? On the hope that the Council will evolve into something significant?

eph

[Shaddowknight]

Also what if staff feels that x player is making it hard for their agenda to get passed with the kangaroo court idea, do they just get rid of the player and remove him from the council because fuck it your staff?

I despise this sort of political bullshit, and if it happens, I'll be letting everyone know about it as I inform everyone That the council is a failure and I won't partake in it anymore.

That said, with who is on it from the Staff side, I don't think that will be an issue.

[kthx]

You say that on one side of your mouth while deliberating for days over a pixelated titty banner. Actions speak louder than words and having to make a decision on something so trivial is frankly embarrassing for you. If you had said "this is stupid we've had players called coathanger abortion for years" I would have felt better that you wont vote with the crowd.

[Morh]

What happens if a Council member gets banned? and what if a staffer on the Council bans a player also on the Council?