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Post by pfbourassa on Nov 21, 2017 17:39:49 GMT
I generally lead toward long-term fixes, so I can the benefit of this Senead. My fear is that too much organizational overhead could deter new members from feeling like they have a voice, or the ability to contribute without taking on a large responsibility.
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Post by ketiao on Nov 21, 2017 20:49:58 GMT
Hmmm. I agree with Parker; I see the value of a senate/parliament council thing, but I'm far more worried about making the project as accessible as possible for those who want to participate. More specifically, I want it to be easy to directly participate in. So imho, the fewer designated/power positions--and detailed organizational systems--the better.
I think TNT's council/parliament etc. would be not only good, but also necessary if the community gets exceedingly large down the line. But I also don't see that happening. Or, at least, not for a very long time (plus Mace gets to eat a ghost pepper if we do get that big).
As is, I think admins & mods give the project enough structure to get by without overcomplicating the system &or limiting user involvement. With the no-confidence vote option, those positions themselves are also subject to the judgement of the community. This leaves pretty much every position connected to production etc. completely open for anyone to jump in on, and hopefully creates a sufficient check should the community need (or decide) to stage a coup vs. traitorous (or just insufficient) staffers.
I suppose the only mess related to that might be if the community for some reason needed to forcibly oust every staffer, as we'd have problems with password transfer and other things. But heck, as that point the whole project would probably just cleave into 2 anyway. (I should note: I cannot imagine this happening with the current group, just mentioning as a counterpoint)
Finally, I've just thought of something re; cooldown period. I like the idea of a cooldown. But wanted to throw out adding, or changing the cooldown option to, a week of 'trial period' or 'internship' for the new staffer. They get a week to try out their job, interacting with the community as well as seeing if they know what they're doing (or, I guess, want to do it). So, community gets a feel for their (potential) staffer, staffer gets a feel for their job. I think cooldown is good as-is, but this as another possibility to increase involvement. c:
/rambly lunch post
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Post by pfbourassa on Nov 21, 2017 21:18:18 GMT
Ketiao strikes a good balance here, in my opinion.
- Small central leadership (3, 5, or mayyybe 7 people) - Delegate imporant roles to anyone who generally deserves it - Anyone can hop into the creative roles if they audition / have software / are otherwise capable
If we ever need to expand the power structure, we have a good baseline, and a roadmap. Maybe we can formalize the process for starting the Senate, but leave it alone for now?
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Post by The TNT Tiger on Nov 21, 2017 21:32:43 GMT
Surely having only a long-term voted position will make new members feel like they have a say less? At maximum they may have to wait three months to get their political say in things; I beleive it necessary for there to be some sort of Seanad even now. I even procured the formula for optimal size for that.
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Post by ketiao on Nov 22, 2017 1:26:43 GMT
While writing this post, I realized I'm absolutely in love with the no-confidence-vote concept because I think it tackles ^TNT's concern^ about people not having political agency. It enables community members to voice and act against shenanigans very quickly; community can initiate no-confidence vote against an offending staffer directly after whatever crap they pull, rather than waiting an election cycle. Anyway. TNT, I totally agree with your sentiment. All the agency to the people! And also, regardless of staffing system, we should be meticulous about announcements and organization so that people who aren't as active but wanna be involved in decisions don't miss out. If a lot of folks are missing out, we should announce and leave voting windows open longer for important decisions and such. (Though some folks want to be in the community, but aren't interested in production and decision-making. And that's cool too.) But at the moment, I don't think a senate solves the problem of community involvement/representation (please ignore that last word's punnage). IMO, instating a senate right now would make folks less able to get their say than directly/democratically discussing things and having a few staffers to implement the community's decisions. there's additional spoilered thoughts below explaining my reasoning, but TL;DR: for the originally-proposed system... - admins are only emergency decision-makers; have final word if necessary
- typically, admin/mods are around to implement the community's decisions/desires
- decision-making occurs via community discussion, enabling easy, inclusive, & active participation
- to include less active folks, important discussions/decisions can be ended with a vote, accompanied by @everyone announcement with voting timeframe
- No-confidence votes allow the community to remove power abusers/rogue staff
Thus, at the moment, enacting a representative senate would shift decisionmaking agency away from the whole community, where it currently lies, and into the votes of a few reps.
Unless we get so large that democracy is no longer decent at representing folks' thoughts, thus necessitating a representative senate, I think direct democracy keeps things as approachable and open-source as possible.
So yeah. Those're my thoughts. If I'm missing or misunderstanding anything about Mace's described admin/mod roles or about TNT's system or etc., please please please correct me! Also if I'm beating a dead horse, feel free to digitally bonk me on the head. {-Here's the aforementioned spoiler'd text. I'm increasingly unsure of whether it adds anything or is just redundant to my tldr-} Idea Project exists is a grassroots creative project, and the supporting community for it, that actually doesn't require much centralized decision-making. Logistic issues are pretty easily implemented by a handful of people(admins/mods), but usually decided upon through direct discussion by the whole community. With the exception of community disagreements, staffers don't typically make decisions; they IMPLEMENT the community's decisions. As in, making "@moderator we voted on a final thumbnail" or "@mod we want a tldr channel" into (virtual) reality. Admins are the "final voice", but if they or mods enact decisions contrary to the community's, ousting them just takes 3 people to initiate a vote of no confidence (and the larger community to agree/vote that the staffer is shit).
This is why a senate would, imo, distance the community from active participation in decision-making. Especially since we're so small. By changing from "everyone votes/discusses" to "everyone can discuss, but only senators vote" you put decision-making into fewer hands. It also makes the system more complicated, and thus less approachable and transparent.
This is especially true of creative and production matters. It's more inclusive and more flexible to let anyone working on &or interested in that episode talk it out. Then, the creative etc. leads *for that specific episode* follow that, tho they of course have final say/decision.
n.b. I want to avoid the Ganger positions for these reasons. As-is, production positions go to people who are knowledgeable and/or passionate about the topic/episode in question, which I dig. Since they can check for factual errors &or are excited about doing good work.
(if we're concerned about this^, we can adapt no-confidence voting to use vs. episode leads. tho production is so fast-paced, it might just organically happen if necessary haha)
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Post by pfbourassa on Nov 26, 2017 20:03:43 GMT
Surely having only a long-term voted position will make new members feel like they have a say less? I think our disagreement here comes from a conflation of political decision-making vs. creative decision-making. For political, I agree with you completely. But we are not building a political system, we’re building a YouTube channel, and politics have become necessary. So if someone sees one of our videos, and follows a link to this forum or discord, I would like them to be bombarded by awesome ideas and curious, thoughtful people. And then, if they want to contribute, I’d rather filter them into the creative positions. Encourage them to write or edit or host an episode. Collect their views and opinions and learn from them. Having a Senead appear as the “first step” to contributing may not the best impression. I really liked 14flash’s way of separating the functions. We are a community, and we are creators. And we have the minimum viable politics.
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Post by pfbourassa on Nov 26, 2017 20:05:23 GMT
My last post got more rambly than I wanted, so I may revise it later. But I also really like the no-confidence thing for the same reasons.
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