(*Now with 3rd Round Straw Poll Q*) Item 1.2 Straw Polls

Not sure what is meant by "this committee" in each item. Can you clarify please?

I'd like to be removed from the committee. Although I appreciate the desire for community-driven decisions, I think the large number of people involved is more likely to be a hindrance than a help. I'd be stunned if I materially disagreed with decisions made by a random group of 5 posters from the above list.

Voted but am behind on discussions. Hope to catch up this afternoon and add thoughts.

I voted bastard because I am ambivalent. I had been thinking we'd need a steering committee to screen new committees since I posted the thread where we authorized the creation of this committee, but now I'm not so sure we actually need one. An alternative might be:

For any committee where the committee goal is to put forth a proposal that is to be adopted by the community according to the standards this committee settles upon, you can create a committee to put together such a proposal so long as you can get at least 4 additional voting members to join the committee, and no more than 1 voting member stating that they wish to block the purpose of that committee. That way, fewer people have to be involved in the meta process of committee creation, and there are still multiple layers of checks on people trolling.

I could be brought onto a steering committee structure if that's what people favored, however.

Oh god dammit, I didn't realize this was a poll for committee members. My bad.

Perhaps a simpler way to accomplish the same thing would be to require, say five, "seconds" for a proposed initiative to go to a site-wide decision. Those five voting members would, of course, be free to (unofficially) caucus before proposing that initiative.

Disclaimer: as facilitator, I'm not advocating for or against here... I'm just trying to move the discussion along.

* First, there has never been, and there is not now, anything stopping anyone from discussing whatever they want to discuss. Let a 1000 caucuses caucus. I've mentioned this before several times. I'll repeat, this Governance Committee is not a kinda board of directors that is empowered to make nuts-n-bolts decisions. Peeps need to stop waiting to be told what to do, and start doing.

* Second, democracy takes time. I'll repeat, this has nothing to do with consensus process/etc/etc... and since we literally never had a block, that couldn't possibly be the cause of any delay. Regardless of what the final decision making process happens to be, it will necessarily entail the functional equivalent of (a) an open pre-motion discussion period, where everyone who cares to can make their concerns known in general can do so  (b) a formal motion being made, (c) a post-motion discussion period, where the merits of the particular motion on the floor is debated, and (d) the actual voting. The above is, for example, the gist of Robert's Rules of Order.

In a face-to-face meeting, these steps can often be accomplished in quick order. In a distributed and asynchronous deliberative body, which has members spanning every time zone around the world, we really have no choice that I can imagine except for waiting for each of the above four steps to "time out" over at least 24 hours. I am all-ears for any suggestions on speeding this distributed and asynchronous process up. So far I've come up empty w/google, and nobody in our community has chimed in any ideas.

I *feel* that peeps are just whining for the sake of whining on this particular subject. If we want democracy, we need to be willing to put the work in to create democracy. The "problem" isn't what we've been doing, and nobody has made any suggestions on how to do things better... the "problem" is, again, we are a distributed and asynchronous community.

* Third, let's say that folks finally do what I've been suggesting all along, stop whining, get off their butts, and start caucusing regarding, say mod standards. Let's say that caucus, after due time and deliberation, come up with a proposal they feel would really benefit our whole community. So then... what next? Without somebody putting in the meta-work regarding how our community actually decides these kinda issues in a democratic manner, all that caucus's work is basically wasted.

Sure, the meta-work can seem like getting angles to dance on the top of pins, and that's of limited interest to most peeps. But it's work that somebody needs to do, regardless. And... it's exactly what this particular committee was mandated to do.    

I don't feel like going point-for-point, but I disagree with the contention that we need to have some sort of meta-process governed by something like Roberts Rules of Order to enact required policies and protocols for this forum. It's like saying we need an atomic bomb to kill a fly.

As far as any "mandate" I can promise you that I would never have voted for the governance committee if I thought it was going to turn out like this. Spending weeks/months discussing meta/process issues. No way would anyone sign up for that. Given the small number of core people interested in these issues, and given the asynchronous nature of an anonymous internet forum, I cannot imagine a worse situation than what we are doing.

The only alternative that I can envision is to work in parallel (or in place of) the current governance committee. A small group of people develop recommendations/proposals on the key set of issues (ownership, posting guidelines, moderation/moderators, etc.). The recommendations/proposals are promulgated and are put into place after a short time period for any significant objections to be raised. Ownership, of course, is a special issue that requires special handling, but the idea is the same.

A small group of people could hammer out posting guidelines in 24 hours. A small group of people could hammer out moderation/moderator protocols in 24 hours. Etc. Obviously, these are not overly critical (time urgent) for the success of the forum, especially since our "grandfathered" guidelines and protocols are fine. But if everything has to be passed through gates, gatekeepers, and time-sinks that we never envisioned, these efforts are unlikely to be undertaken.

The salient point is that the subset of people interested in waiting around for weeks/months before anything is accomplished is much smaller than the set of people who were interested in helping the forum successfully get off the ground a month ago. And the enthusiasm for doing so has been greatly diminished.

Which I have been suggesting since day one. WTF is stopping you?



So where is the fire? If we all agree that this shiz isn't time urgent, what's all the hullabaloo about?



Dude, things are already getting done. Why do you feel this strange need to wait around for weeks/months? Stop waiting, start doing.

What's happening is that peeps of good faith, like cuserounder, are doing what they feel needs to be done... with the promise that they will "turn over the keys" when we, as a community, are ready to take the wheel. There is absolutely nothing stopping anything we might possibly imagine wanting to do by proceeding this manner, as long as we all keep that trust. At worst, some boilerplate like legal registrations/by-laws/etc/etc would at that time need to be amended or redone. Since this is all new to us, we should really expect that to happen anyways... even under a dictatorship.

What I'm hearing is you want a dictatorship because the trains aren't running on time. Democracy doesn't work that way.

I’m abstaining, my proposal is in ATF.

voted

I appreciate the devil's advocacy (I agree with you that there are too few cooks, not too many), but I think that on most occasions, there will be little opposition to mere committee formation, and as such, having perpetual site wide votes for mere committee formation is unnecessarily cumbersome.  In my estimation, if you can convince people to be on your committee, and you don't have anyone saying that your committee should be blocked, then you should be empowered to at least put in the work and put forth a proposal for a site wide vote, rather than needing one vote to form, and another to adopt the proposal.

[Original OP: May 14, 2019 9:22:33 GMT -7]

Fellow Gov Comm members, and Unstuckers in general,

This thread is a break-out from the main Governance 1.2: Role and Structure of this Committee thread, and should be logically considered #included in it. I realize that constantly splitting off threads is distracting. However, (a) I'm not a mod, so I need to be OP to edit this OP to keep current the "what's happening now" remark above, and (b) I've volunteered to facilitate this part of the discussion, and it seems like a good idea to me to isolate that here. Since I wasn't elected as a facilitator, I'll give up the gavel on request of any committee member.

Note: The three straw poll questions are combined above. It's set so that peeps can make three selections. Please make one selection each for items marked #1, #2, and #3.

This is what we are discussing ITT... [Inline quote of this post]

[Original Poll Questions, with vote count as of: May 16, 2019 4:35 PM PDT]

Three separate Qs #1,#2,#3, see OP for details
You may select up to 3 answers.

#1 Comm only decides site-wide initiative process [0 votes]
#1 Comm also tackles ownership/etc/etc [10 votes]
#1 Bastard ~ it's complicated [2 votes]

#2 Comm becomes standing [6 votes]
#2 Comm disbands after done [4 votes]
#2 Bastard ~ it's complicated [1 vote]

#3 Comm favors a screening comm for site-wide [1 vote]
#3 Comm disfavors such a screening comm [4 votes]
#3 Bastard ~ it's complicated [6 votes]

There have been 34 votes by 12 voters.

TYVM for your feedback. Folks: this is exactly the kinda response we need to move forward here.

Regarding whether this de facto precedent consensus process has been laid out anywhere... the answer is no, not really. What I'm referring to is primarily the two threads which established this Governance Committee (exiledpolitics.freeforums.net/thread/86/authorize-creation-forum-governance-committee), and the Tech Committee (exiledpolitics.freeforums.net/thread/85/vote-delegate-tech-committee-begin). In both these threads we had a situation of 40+ "yes" votes, and 1 or 2 "no" votes. The "no" voters were invited to express their concerns. Then, they were asked if their "no" vote should be considered a "block", or if they were willing to "stand aside". In every case the "no" voters stated directly that they did not intend to "block"... so we did in fact use a consensus process in both cases, and did in fact reach consensus in both cases. In addition, both committee's internal processes have been specifically consensus based.

Regarding the definition of "voting member"... no, that hasn't really been discussed. Since, as you correctly noted, the ad-hoc vetting thread was widely dismissed, we've been operating under a de facto definition of: "every account on this forum is considered a voting member".