This title thread should be called: "Elements Council - A New Way to ORGANIZE the Community". Rule implies that you're just going to have more 'dissenters' who feel that they deserve the job/they could do a better job 'ruling' the community/etc. 
That said, when you say that one of the council's tasks is to 'decide the bigger picture' of the forum events and other ideas, does this mean that certain sections already controlled by staff members (Event Organizers, Card Curators, PVP/Tournament/League Organizers, etc.) have to get approval by the Council in order to improve their own management?
Example:
-Suppose a staff member actually finds a new way to organize a part of the forum section, and spreads the word that the changes will occur soon. Do they:
a) do what they need to do to organize,
or
b) ask the council for their opinions first for them to 'determine if it's good for the overall picture/future of the forum', then act accordingly based on their decision?
Yea, you are right about the topic name. It definitely suggest that the council has more power than they actually will have.
If we take card curating as an example, you won't need to get any kind of approval from the council.
Main job of the council will be to decide
A) How many staff members are needed
B) Who is hired/fired
One other example of what council could do would be something like the Deck Archive. Maybe some council member had an idea to build a Deck Archive. They would then have a discussion about how to implement it, have a vote, then go ahead with the idea.
But the last example brings up my main concern about this whole project. Let me explain.
Most of us have been brainwashed that democracy is some kind of flawless, fair and perfect system. The fact is that democracy, like all other forms of government, fail because humans fail. Corruption, different motives, not enough information, being dumb, etc. all these severely affect the effectiveness of democracy. People who are not
qualified to make certain decisions, are given the power to do so.
For example if you run a country and have to make some kind of big medical decisions that concerns everyone (like for example vaccines), you don't have a democratic vote where you ask every single person their opinion because those people are not qualified to make that decision.
We don't have vaccines on this forum, but we have things like forum navigation
usability. This is an example of something that the council will not decide because most of them are not qualified to do so. It takes years of web design (or something similar) experience to fully understand usability, and I don't want this forum to turn out to be Homer Simpson's website (
).
I guess what I'm trying to say is that the less technical and less "easy" the decision is, the more likely it is that the Council will decide it. Recruiting is a good example because anyone can do it basically as it mostly has a lot to do with social contacts (something all of us have) and who is an active member.
Everyday decisions are done by staff members who run their dedicated sections. Technical forum stuff are done by me. In both of these cases, the Council can of course suggest things, but it cannot intervene in all things and basically have the ultimate power.
