Elements Council - A New Way To Organize the Community

[ddevans96]

Government intelligence? What's that?

I think he meant military intelligence--at least that's what I always heard.

...no, I mean government intelligence....like the CIA or MI6...

The point of it is that government always has a section for intelligence. The irony is that people often find the government as stupid.

[Malduk]

Council? Sounds... important.

Why make hard predetermined limits on number of people on there? Staff members, and overall, active helpful members of community that you'd want there could and probably will change. I say start small, and expand from time to time if needed. Especially if it will start as fire/hire thingy. How often do you fire/hire anyway?
Also, from my experience of running a community, polls suck. Democracy sucks, even when there are small amount of people casting votes. Best decisions are made through argumented discussion. I actually hate polls as voting doesnt require any serious thought or argument behind that vote. Starting a discussion, and seeing arguments from people that actually care enough to write something about the topic, is worth tons more than percentages voting gives.

Good luck with the idea.

[PuppyChow]

Council? Sounds... important.

Why make hard predetermined limits on number of people on there? Staff members, and overall, active helpful members of community that you'd want there could and probably will change. I say start small, and expand from time to time if needed. Especially if it will start as fire/hire thingy. How often do you fire/hire anyway?
Also, from my experience of running a community, polls suck. Democracy sucks, even when there are small amount of people casting votes. Best decisions are made through argumented discussion. I actually hate polls as voting doesnt require any serious thought or argument behind that vote. Starting a discussion, and seeing arguments from people that actually care enough to write something about the topic, is worth tons more than percentages voting gives.

Good luck with the idea.

But it isn't quite a democracy. It's more of a representative democracy (republic) type thingy. The council members would ideally be people that do care about the forum so votes would be placed carefully and hopefully only after discussion.

And if it does, you could always extend decision making time from, say, 24 hours to 48 hours. The first 24 would be simple discussion, while the last 24 would allow for voting.

With a representative democracy like the USA you can run into problems with lifelong/career politicians and corruption and such. I highly doubt this forum will experience those problems, mostly because the general community won't be aware of the decisions so won't know when they want to bribe us or such. And the type of bribe will be lol worthy. "I'll give you karma if you vote for this idea!!!!!" Seriously? Who the hell would accept a bribe of a +1 of a meaningless number?

[Helios]

It is a democracy, though one must distinguish between direct democracy where citizens vote directly on matters (like the system in ancient Athens or, to a certain extent, that established in modern Switzerland) and representative democracy, where the electorate votes people into power whom then make decisions on their behalf (supposedly).

While being a member of the government of this forum cannot be compared to being a member of the government of a major country on most levels, all power corrupts, as Lord Acton famously stated.

Therefore, it should be the responsibility of the individual members of government to do their utmost to ensure that they are not negatively changed upon being granted more power.

[giversgivealot]

this sounds like an excellent idea everyone i hope this works out

[cloj63]

don't really like the idea; bad memories with hidden forum member who decide without others...

I think internet allow us to effectively use "direct democracy". We don't need a concil to decide for us (even if it's only the big picture of something...) for if we are interest, we will talk, if we are not, we will not: council members will be more active member? will they be less active if we don't have a council?

The should be a "council member" title, with a council forum but open to all.

as I said; I don't like the idea of a hidden forum.

[tyranim]

i like that progress/congress thing. it makes sense

[slovenc555]

Hey, that's good. maybie some people would acctually get a job. Not like now when your chances are mostly below 10% because you are active in the wrong sections.

[tyranim]

im sure there are quite a bit hidden forums. there is the masters dojo (that i miss so dearly). im sure there are one or 2 others

[slovenc555]

Hey, instead of calling it council, call it FBI (Forum Bast*rd Improvement) or CIA (Cloning Inteligent Agents). Hell, call it USA (Unreal Supernatural Anomaly a.k.a Deception)

[Malduk]

But it isn't quite a democracy. It's more of a representative democracy (republic) type thingy. The council members would ideally be people that do care about the forum so votes would be placed carefully and hopefully only after discussion.

And if it does, you could always extend decision making time from, say, 24 hours to 48 hours. The first 24 would be simple discussion, while the last 24 would allow for voting.

With a representative democracy like the USA you can run into problems with lifelong/career politicians and corruption and such. I highly doubt this forum will experience those problems, mostly because the general community won't be aware of the decisions so won't know when they want to bribe us or such. And the type of bribe will be lol worthy. "I'll give you karma if you vote for this idea!!!!!" Seriously? Who the hell would accept a bribe of a +1 of a meaningless number?

Generally, I agree with you. I wasnt really talking about bribes and corruption (lol), but take this example: say Weird Al is nominated for a spot, and poll opens for vote. Idealy, yes, all those that vote care. But there's a member that had some discussion with Weird Al that left him butthurt for one reason or another, and he silently votes "no", even though Weird Al is really a great guy that would do the job as he's getting paid for it. Sure, its not the end of the world, but its kinda gay. On the other hand, if votes are given through discussion, I doubt silent member would write there "yeah, this guy dared to prove me wrong in front of everyone on forum, I dont want him get a job because of that". People are lame like that.

[vrt]

You can show poll votes.