[Senate] Proposed Rules Revision

Just out of curiosity what is the level of consensus which is required to make a decision? Does it need to be unanimous or bare majority? What is the consensus at this point? It would be nice to know so that we have sufficient time to form an active underground vigilante resistance movement with a secret handshake and stuff.

 

All mods need to vote, and you just need a winner. I seem to recall at least one Mod was promoted with only 2 or 3 votes in advantage. However this is going back like 7 years at this point...

 

No worries, thanks for the clarification.

 

I do hope that when making this new consideration, the totality of opinion of "core Senate users" is included. That is, it ought to include the many individuals who regularly used the Senate up until the time of the split, but felt unwelcome in light of the handling of that issue. Otherwise, you are taking a biased and ahistorical sample with a largely pre-determined outcome.

 

Well, not quite what I meant--or if it is, I'm going to restate so as to be completely clear. You referred to "active core Senate users." There is a group that posted in the Senate forum before we ever moved to Senate boards. Some of them liked the merger, while some have preferred the split, as you say. I only hope that when you say "active core" you use the "pre-Temp board" definition, not the "Senate" that existed at the time of the merger or the "Senate" that exists now, post-split.

 

Yes, but at which given time? This is a core issue in this debate, as I would see it.

I have always advocated that this should be a community wide decision, and that everyone's voice should be taken into account. I stand by that now. But if special considerations or procedures are being undertaken in light of the Senate's special nature, then it matters very much how you define the Senate. That's probably been on of the most hotly debated topics across the 15 pages of this thread, so I sincerely hope people haven't been lazy about thinking through the definition.

 

I think what he's saying is "we need to consider the boards as a whole, and what we consider as in the board's interests may not align with majority opinion; but then again, it may"

 

Indeed, the way they carry this out seems logical. But with most standings on the matter made clear, I believe they will come to a mutually beneficial decision.

 

Indeed, the way they carry this out seems logical. But with most standings on the matter made clear, and most conflicting opinions exhausted, I believe they will come to a mutually beneficial decision.

 

Keeping an actual forum named the Senate would be a ridiculous and stupid decision. The Senate died a long time ago, and bringing it back in zombie form was stupid. Keeping it around even longer would be even more stupid.

 

I am glad to hear that, Grimby. I was not so much arguing for the primacy of my personal definition of the Senate, but against using the "current" definition of the Senate as the controlling one, since the last iteration of this discussion gave particular preference to the forum as envisioned by two or three people and ignored everyone else. Treating all the different conceptions of the Senate differently is more or less what I would like to hear.

 

I'd still merge it back into JCC, the newbies that I'm seeing are also posting in the JCC although the new blood has drawn me out of the woodwork which is nice even if the posts are the same ones as seen two and three years ago with other likeminded individuals

 

What now? I wouldn't have any idea. We have been waiting for you to tell us. We are now less than 24 hours shy of a full 4 weeks since this issue was raised, and 3 weeks since a vote from the moderators was announced. We were completely silent for the duration at your request, so that there would be time to consider the issue or vote in peace or whatever rationale was claimed at the time. Now the first update we receive is a trial balloon about keeping the status quo, without any update on the actual process we were supposed to waiting for?

Well, let me answer your question. In spite of its recent uptick in activity, the forum is still abysmally attended. What bump in activity there is has resulted largely from a migration of Community members into a few threads. These include long time members like beezel and anakinsfan, but also newer ones like SkywalkerNumbers and Moviefan. Again, all of these are community regulars, all post in the style most seen on the Community forum, and none of them have ever expressed a preference for traditional Senate style discussion. Indeed examining the new posts to come out of the late surge, they are still significantly shorter than the Senate "average," there are still ample use of quips, a lack of data citation, and liberally employed one-line posts. In short, these run like Community forum discussions that just got weirdly translocated. Which, as we have reviewed historically, is pretty much what happened at the outset. All the issues that were raised at the beginning of this review are still present, and further erode the case for a separate Senate. Of the most vocal proponents of separate forums, neither has posted more than 15 times. In short, I don't see how this changes anything.

And going further, I have to express how deeply disappointed I've been by this whole process. I respect the administrative staff's right to private deliberations, and I understand that this isn't ultimately a democracy. But I do expect some modicum of respect for the userbase. At every step in this process, we have been dealt with in bad faith. The split was made without any consultation, or even much in the way of advance notice. To this day, the actual moderators of the forum in question refuse to address any complaints or concerns about it, except to insult those who bring up said concerns. We were told to stop agitating so heartily, and the resulting silence now seems to be deployed as evidence that there is no longer an issue. This whole process has been managed in singularly poor fashion, and I cannot overstate either my mounting disgust or my eroding faith.

What is actually happening? When are the actual problems we put forward going to be addressed in some fashion? What sort of time table can we expect for a decision on final status? What have we done to so earn your ire that our concerns are handled so irregularly? This has been an incredibly long process. Say something. Do something. Communicate.

 

The new users would post in those threads if they were in Community, Merk. I don't think that's going to change anything.

But, it's been more than a month so as Wocky said, what's the story? Holidays can't account for the whole of the delays?

 

A locked thread from a week ago is twelfth on the front page.

 

this thing isnt going away

THE CIRCLEEEEEEEeeeee THE CIRCLE... OF LIIIIIIFFFFFFEEEEEEEEE

 

It seems like the emphasis should be on "a bit". In four weeks of spotlighting this issue, the poll in this thread still shows a majority in favor of rule change with 4 opposed. The posters in Senate consist of a "hostile takeover" joke thread and a few posts from Community users posting as if they were in Community. None of this seems to justify leaving the Senate as is. It only seems to prove that Senate could survive merged into Community and activity can only go up there given that it took 4 weeks spent on this issue to even get that little bit of activity in Senate. And if both moderators are leaving then it is even more reason to bring Senate back to the merged Community area instead of promoting a dedicated moderator to essentially manage a graveyard.

 

Why do you people hate freedom?