The Elite Forum
The Big Three Plus One => General Chat => Topic started by: DYM on December 20, 2018, 09:45:36 am
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Since the recent incidents involving bu7 and several former council members, I do not believe that it is in dispute that the community has requested changes be made to the council. As of now, I am aware of two MAJOR changes made by the newest iteration of the council:
(1) The additions of mw and Birdie to the council, and (2) making the council discussion logs public. I don’t think anyone would dispute (2), but I will comment on (1) below. No other changes have been made at this time.
As much as I respect the members of the council as community leaders, I can’t help but feel that this is once again setting The Elite up for failure. Keep in mind that when I say this, I’m not saying that they ultimately reached the wrong decision. The council may have VERY well reached the best resolution possible. I’m saying that we have no real way of knowing whether or not they did in this case at this point, and that it is of paramount importance that the community has a final, on the record, say regarding the council changes.
As of now, these major issues have not been publicly addressed:
(1) WHO has the power to select council members?
The additions of mw and Birdie appear to indicate that the council believes that they have the sole (formal, anyway) power to add or remove members, with a vague promise of “community input” before the final council vote. The fact that the only mechanism for adding council members is for unelected council members to appoint other unelected council members CONTINUES to stupefy me. In a community full of articulate, college educated, 100K+ salary earning mates, the concept of people not being able to competently vote for a small video game community leader baffles me. After all of these years, no one has articulated a single reason to me why people can vote for the president/PM of their country, but voting for elite council representatives is just much responsibility for someone to handle.
To his credit, Wodahs has claimed to have spoken with many community members regarding the selections of mw and Birdie. Ultimately, though, this implies that the council is the sole body that can determine if someone is qualified to serve on the council, and that we need no formal community vote to confirm what they have allegedly heard from the community. This is exactly the same procedure the previous council would follow when going about their business, and for whatever reason they were also terrified of putting major community decisions to a formal vote, instead hiding behind vague statements of “We’ve talked it over with everyone already, no need for a vote”. Unfortunately, we’ve all seen how that worked out on a number of occasions.
(2) If the community disagrees with a council decision, does the community have the power to do anything about it? If so, what and how?
Giving the recent bu7 saga, the answer to this question is quite obviously “yes”. Once again, though, my concern lies not in the unspoken authority of the community to riot when necessary, but in the total lack of a sophisticated, formal process to do so. Without a formal process, the only inevitable outcomes are more behind the back turncoatery, more screenshotters, and more /r/speedrun exposures of our own community. A formal process would also hopefully help to quell the amount of mudslinging and name calling that we’ve seen in the past whenever someone disagrees with community leadership. We’ve all seen what happens when someone, right or wrong, thinks that this community hasn’t given them a fair chance to state their case. I’d rather not see it again.
(3) Should there be a public community Code of Conduct for both players and council members?
I’m not too sure about this one, but (taking a page from current council procedure) after having several private conversations with unnamed eliters, it appears that a SIGNIFICANT amount of people wish to have a public proclamation stating what types of behaviors can lead to a banning from Discord/Forums/the entire community even. This is an extremely touchy proposition, but I think that it is one that needs to be decided on by the entire community in any event. We came to an agreement on at least one shared community principle during the bu7 saga, but it would be interesting to see if there are any more that a supermajority of eliters can rally behind.
FINAL RECOMMENDATIONS:
If the community indicates that they wish to make additional changes to the council in this poll, I would recommend that each of the three issues above be voted on in separate public forum threads. I have come to realize that these issues need to be discussed piece by piece, because superthreads that pose large questions such as “Should we change the council” will always provide too wide of a range of responses, which can be manipulated by anyone to fit their personal agenda. There may be additional issues brought up by other community members that need to be publicly voted on as well, and I would obviously have no issue with that.
In closing, I hope that everyone can manage to take this one thread of mine seriously. I have been a member of this community for well over a decade, and this recent incident has damaged the community GREATER than anything that has come before it. If the community truly thinks that the two changes made the new council are sufficient to prevent something like this from ever happening again, so be it. For me, though, I can’t help but feel that while there are different faces involved, the problems with the council remain exactly the same. The problem isn’t just who is on the council, the problem is ultimately the unchecked power the council holds.
Regards,
YMCA (Your Mate & Champ Ace)
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(1) WHO has the power to select council members?
In truth, the power lies with the forum admins. In practice it appears that when there was a need to elect someone to the council a vote would be made.
An alternative I thought about was an open election where people would volunteer to be candidates and perhaps the public casts a ranked choice vote or something, and we take the top 3 for a council vote, im not sure what would be best here though.
(2) If the community disagrees with a council decision, does the community have the power to do anything about it? If so, what and how?
I am sure if there was enough backlash the council could ask to have a vote to roll something back. But that isn't good enough I think. What might be better is to have a separate "Announcements and Policy Discussion" sub board where all the council/forum announcements go with a clear place to have discussions.
I am not sure if "General Chat" is the best place to do this. A "public override" option doens't seem easy to implement because that would require 1) a sizeable amount of the community to vote (do we just say if more than 50 votes are casted in the poll?) and 2) what majority do you want for the "veto" option? The current system is designed with the idea that the council members represent the entire Elite, which is clearly impossible.
(3) Should there be a public community Code of Conduct for both players and council members?
This is on my radar. I think the council will have a discussion about a community code of conduct, that I am personally pushing, to make clear what behavior is acceptable vs what is not. I was previously blocked on having a proper council first.
All that being said, I am not sure if I agree with the premise of your poll, because A) the changes are not done, probably never and B) I don't think there are clear answers to 2, 3 to have a vote for.
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Some good thoughts there Ace. I can't really vote for either of the poll options but think this merits further discussion.
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Id have to agree. A community vote for our elected council members makes the most sense. Put you name in, run for office and see how many votes you get. Makes sense to me.
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Fucking nailed it. All three of these issues need to be made absolutely crystal clear if we are to avoid getting into the same situation again.
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These all seem too easy.
(1) WHO has the power to select council members?
This is already covered in the proof policy:
If public opinion of a council member becomes negative, discussion will be held in public forum to remove or replace members of the council. Likewise, when public opinion of a member of the community is favorable for addition, they shall be instated to the council.
If you think this is a bad way to handle membership changes (it could sure use some clarification, at least), you should contact member(s) of the Elite Council directly and express your displeasure. You could even suggest a change to the policy. Then it is their responsibility to bring it forward to the rest of the council members for a discussion and potential vote.
This is what the Elite Council is for. If they aren't very responsive and a large part of the community disagrees with them, that brings us to....
(2) If the community disagrees with a council decision, does the community have the power to do anything about it? If so, what and how?
Absolutely! And it's also already in the proof policy. In fact, I quoted this section already above.
If the Elite Council does something that most of the community is unhappy with, the clearest way to remedy the situation is to remove the member(s) with unfavorable reputations and replace them with new members that have the mandate of the community. Any decision they made in the past can be unmade at any time. That's how it works.
(3) Should there be a public community Code of Conduct for both players and council members?
This could fall under the Elite Council as far as the rankings are concerned, but the rankings themselves are not the most interactive part of our community so it seems like it would barely fall under their control at all. Instead, this is the responsibility of community leaders such as the forum administrator(s), Discord administrator(s), website owner, webmaster, etc.
Hey, that list actually includes me! And I can report that I started this discussion with major stakeholders several months ago. It is still ongoing and your input is appreciated!