Elements Council - General Discussion and Feedback

[Higurashi]

This is where you should tell us what you think of the Council and Council system

The Council is a system that alleviates the workload for the Admin and simultaneously allows the rest of the community to influence forum decisions. If you have feedback on how the Council is doing, how it's selected and what principles it follows, post it here.

For instance, would you like more transparency on Council decisions or discussion? Would you mind if decisions took longer as a result of investing time in more transparency?

If you suspect somebody is slacking off like that one bald guy on the steps, don't post it here. Let us deal with it.

[dragtom]

transparancy is almost always a good thing,
yet it may delay things to the point where nothing happens.

often a bad decision is better than no decision, as that causes the bad things from all options to happen.

more people thinking about something does mean there are more arguments for all options.

There is somewhere an optimal point of transparancy. I think the council can decide pretty good where that lies.

[timetock]

I trust the council to make the right decisions. I'll put my faith in the council, as they ARE carefully selected. I assume they ARE the qualified people they promised to be. So I'll trust in the council to decide what is best for us. I'll be fine in sacrificing a bit of transparency for quicker decisions. So long as the discussion is revealed to us upon request, of course.

[mrpaper]

There should be reserve council members that step in whenever a staff member goes offline for a month or more unless he said he will have to. That would prevent what came here which is half of em leaving slowly and the others with a burden they don't want/can't take.  Also get new council members right away if there are no reserve members left.

[andretimpa]

I sincerely have no idea of what the council does (besides taking the applications for staff positions). So I think some transparency is lacking, at least let us know what is being discussed.

[TribalTrouble]

I sincerely have no idea of what the council does (besides taking the applications for staff positions). So I think some transparency is lacking, at least let us know what is being discussed.

Agreed.

Maybe have something like a newsletter position where someone is appointed to report on what happens in the council every month?

For example something like:

A topic that is stickied either in Announcements or the Council section.

This topic is only allowed to be posted in for updates on the Council's progress.
A separate topic for discussion should be stickied directly below.

The updates should be in a table format (I don't know how to do the forum table code so bare with me)
Each separate project should get its own row and should have a description of where it's at and what improvements have been(or are being) made to them. Each month a different table should be posted as a reply to the last post's table so that the community can compare and see what's changing in the community and just how the council's efforts(or lack thereof) are effecting the community.

Obviously this is my first idea and has room for improvement. For example maybe a table isn't right for this, maybe a different format is better!

edit: There could possibly be a row for Council Position changes as well as a row for Council Member of the Month.

[Higurashi]

We do have newsletters and newsletter writers. There's a staff position for it, and Council has stepped up to create the newsletters when the newsletter writers haven't been able to.

Regarding what the Council has done lately, there's not a problem of transparency: the problem is that they have almost only done staff hirings. This will be remedied once I get a new Council.

Nonetheless, I take it from this that the public wants regular updates on what the Council is working on.

[TribalTrouble]

We do have newsletters and newsletter writers. There's a staff position for it, and Council has stepped up to create the newsletters when the newsletter writers haven't been able to.

I mean something where it is made specifically for showing the changes made by the council, showing exactly what the council is working on. Sort of a Newsletter specific to the Council and made such that the community understands that the Council is making progress on something rather than just hearing that 'Well X project finally finished, and we are proud to announce that it is starting up'. For Guilds we were just given hype and then a forum event that really just didn't work right. I don't know if this could've stopped Guilds from failing or if it would've just made Guilds fail faster than before, but the idea is to give an incentive for the Council to get things done as well as providing the community with the ability to see what the council is up to. We are improving the level of Council Awareness.

[Blacksmith]

We do have newsletters and newsletter writers. There's a staff position for it, and Council has stepped up to create the newsletters when the newsletter writers haven't been able to.

I mean something where it is made specifically for showing the changes made by the council, showing exactly what the council is working on. Sort of a Newsletter specific to the Council and made such that the community understands that the Council is making progress on something rather than just hearing that 'Well X project finally finished, and we are proud to announce that it is starting up'. For Guilds we were just given hype and then a forum event that really just didn't work right. I don't know if this could've stopped Guilds from failing or if it would've just made Guilds fail faster than before, but the idea is to give an incentive for the Council to get things done as well as providing the community with the ability to see what the council is up to. We are improving the level of Council Awareness.

I agree a tablet with all the decision the council make should be submitted somewhere. In the same way like the patches are.  So like:

Council 1

Spoiler for Hidden:

XXX changed 12/2 2010
xxxx was added 17/2 2010

Council 2
... etc etc

And preferingly make everyone in the council able to update this list to make council more flexible.

I'd like to add that the new council will work a bit differently which is explained in the application for the new council.

Further on I'd like the council to have it's own thread for suggestion and feedback instead of as it is now with the bug section. I think this could make the community more involved with it and create a more direct contact for council to look at the suggestion tablet.
Spoiler for how the current suggestion thread looks like.

Spoiler for Hidden:

http://elementscommunity.org/forum/forum-bugs-suggestions-and-feedback/

[MyNameIsJoey]

First step to improvement is to make this very thread. Thank you, higs.

Now, for being transparent, from what i gather the problem is not that we dont know what council does, its that council doesnt do anything.

In my opinion, you should have a rule of X months or 2/3. Let me explain, The council will be disbanded after X months or when less than 2/3rd of the original council is active. Now, to give an amount of time  for council to stay, and an amount of time a person has to be away for it to be considered inactive.

*insert stupid rant about guilds failing here*

Right now I don't have much more to say, I'll reply again later on. Thanks again higs for making this thread.

[Chapuz]

@Higurashi: How will the new council members be picked and how will the council "formation" be? i.e I've read there's at least 1 council member per big part of the forum, like PvP events and TO, will that remain?
I think it's important for the community if it's explained with all the details, so the community can give feedback on the method and you can finally adjust something if you consider it is necessary.

[inthisroom]

The council having no actual influence on the game itself, new events being suggested by the Event Organisers and the community voting for them, the same happening with pretty much every other aspect of the forum, I never really expected the council to do much more than appoint staff members for the various sections and tasks that arise on the forums and guarantee the smooth organisation of pvp and forum events.

So as long as things work, I don't really care to be kept up to date on who will be replaced by whom for whatever reason, regularly updating the staff members thread should fulfill that purpose anyway and I don't really see what else the council could achieve as I think most other aspects of the forum/chat seem to be decided and organised by the administrators and every aspect of the game depends solely on Zanzarino.

tl;dr:
I don't care who's on council, or how it's appointed/elected, as long as it works.

Spoiler for Hidden:

The bald guy on the steps isn't slacking off, he's at the heart of the council, reading something terribly important. The others are just waiting for him to be done so they'll finally get some guidance on what to do with themselves.