Motion of No Confidence

[plastiqe]

Where is the September Newsletter, Council?  Where is it?!?  How are we supposed to keep up with all the happenings around the forums without a newsletter?  Do you actually expect us to read the threads ourselves?
^ Internet sarcasm

How long does Council stay in office?  When SG left did she make appointments for life?  It'll be one year this October.

Threads like this and this and this make me sad.  Surely something could be done.

Do we really need 3 Admins taking up valuable council seats?  I thought Admins we de-facto above the council and for settling ties and such.

For all of these reasons (but especially the lack of newsletters) I think we should have the 5th council.  Figure out some way to choose them that isn't a popularity poll and I'd apply.

[willng3]

Where is the September Newsletter, Council?  Where is it?!?  How are we supposed to keep up with all the happenings around the forums without a newsletter?  Do you actually expect us to read the threads ourselves?

Um.  The newsletter for each month usually comes out on the first of the next month.  The September Newsletter is due to come out on Oct. 1.

I completely ignored the rest of the OP after reading this.

[plastiqe]

Newsletters that come out in October should be called October newsletters!

[Gandora]

Newsletters that come out in October should be called October newsletters!

Not if the Newsletter summarizes what happened in September x)

[teffy]

I think, when it´s time for elections, we should have new elections.
But I don´t understand, what the role of the council is now, after the forum movement, and SG vanishing in April 2012. No new posts, there since forum movement.

My suggestion concerning the council:
Give the council a role - and new elections , or disband the council officially.

[ddevans96]

The council still helps select staff members.

Really, not selecting a new council after almost a year is unfair to a lot of people who aren't currently in council. I intentionally sat out of Council 4 to see if the new system would work (and it definitely did), with the intent of applying for Council 5...sad to see that didn't happen.

Beyond that, there's a whole new group of people in the past year who could quite possibly make Council now that weren't here a year ago.

I've brought this up in chat a few times and it seems to be a possibility, so I'll keep my fingers crossed.

[Doichimaru]

First off, topics like this one make me sad (yes, I saw the three topics that plastique linked in his opening post). To be honest, those topics are not sad, because that just shows that there are members that still are concerned about this community. Secondly, that rant and rave in plastique's opening post is just a bunch of blah blah blah (will is right in ignoring it, since it was a bunch of large font garbage). Finally I agree w/ Gandora and ddevans: 1) the release of a newsletter for a certain month on the 1st of a new month would imply that that newsletter itself is a summary of the events that occurred for that month (can't summarize on September if September isn't over yet, huh?), and 2) council does help select staff; yeah... about that... no, SG did not make appointments for life (I for the life of me cannot comprehend how plastique could make such a insulting, banal argument). Oh, and one more thing: Just because the Admins are in that position does not mean that they cannot be on the council; yes the Admin are technically "above" council, but that's not the point.

In short, could we as a community actually discuss something of substance around here? Or are we just gonna be a bunch of whiny, sniveling peons? *GAH*

[Higurashi]

Figure out some way to choose them that isn't a popularity poll and I'd apply.

Only useful part of this post. This is the crux. You don't think people have thought about this? Until we have a better method, I don't intend on getting a new council. Why? Because the current one has active, useful, competent people. It'd be counterproductive to get a new one and then go through the weeding process yet ANOTHER time. I have almost no free time currently due to moving, and I sure as hell am not about to waste any of it on going through the same process again. I'd rather just add people to it, but we need a fair way to do that too.

If one of the other two Admins want to wrestle with it, that's fine by me. Until then, what Doichi said. Make yourself useful instead. We're all volunteers.

[plastiqe]

Ok then, fair enough.





4th Council takes applications for 5th council.
Hold the public poll to get community feedback but final call is voted by council.
Since it's been 1 year no repeat members from council 4 are allowed.
Give the new council a term limit of 3 months? 6 months?
If anyone is inactive replace them.

[summerz88]

*just a noobie post* But is there anything us peons can do to help? Even if we're not getting official roles or titles blah blah blah, basically what I'm saying is if doing X is burning through your time, but almost anyone could do X, can I put my hand up to offer to help?

[ZephyrPhantom]

*just a noobie post* But is there anything us peons can do to help? Even if we're not getting official roles or titles blah blah blah, basically what I'm saying is if doing X is burning through your time, but almost anyone could do X, can I put my hand up to offer to help?

Yes, there are tons of ways normal users can help make the forum more interesting - you don't have to have a staff position to start an event.
 
I've encouraged people on chat to start their own unofficial tournaments and events (they don't necessarily have to sponsored - SHUT and Card Designer Challenges used to be unofficial counterparts to Tourneys and Competitions respectively.) Other 'quick-type' events like Chat Mafia are a great way to start things up on a normally 'dead' chat.

We also have a Duels section, which could be used for a variety of things - while it could be used to organize an unofficial tournament or just hold a bunch of 1vs1 matches, a bolder player could also try to make an unofficial league of sorts. There's also the Battle minigame, which could become a part of an event you start (e.g. Kill 10 Monsters, then PvP the player with the most kills.)

[Doichimaru]

What is this about me actually calling people peons? I never said that anyone was as such. The intention was that I was trying to ask my fellow community members a simple question: 'Are we going to continue being the strong community that we've always been, or are we gonna reduce ourselves to something less that what we are supposed to be?' That is all.

--- Updated ---

Plastique's method would seem swelll except that: 1) the whole "1 year" thing is being too picky; we may not have enough competent members to pull that off. and 2) the term limit... there should be some discussion in-depth on how the terms should work. I like the idea and where plastique is going with it, but it's too vague for the time being. Other than that, I would say that plastique is on the right track.