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| Obduction Backer |
Joined: Tue May 09, 2006 1:17 am
Posts: 1702
Location: Spokane, WA
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(I'm not stalking you, I swear...)
The Noble Robot wrote: Tweek wrote: Under what authority do I call myself a D'ni Historian, of a Designer? Get real. There's a stark difference between claiming a profession/skill and claiming a title/position. Many people are designers, but only one person is President of the United States, for example. You can say "I am a guitar player," but you can't say "I play guitar for Van Halen" unless you are actually hired by Van Halen.
True. But then, there's only one President of the United States, and only one person who plays guitar for Van Halen. These are also both known entities; you'd generally be considered insane if you went around claiming that  .
Conversely, the Guilds are not known entities right now. They're things that we have to build. So if we're building these Guilds, why wouldn't we call ourselves members of them in the process? It would be one thing if we had a Guild of Writers, and someone went around claiming to be a member of it when they clearly weren't... it'd be like someone walking around now telling people they were a member of the Guild of Greeters when they clearly aren't. But the difference is, the Greeters already exist; they are a known quantity in the Cavern, with established procedures for membership. The Writers have no such organization, so I think logically, those who are involved in trying to create it have every right to attach themselves to the group's name whether it's official or not.
Of course, the thing to keep in mind is that while the GoW may not be official, there are a number of people who have several years of experience in the tasks the Guild will be undertaking, and so those people have naturally gravitated into the discussion and have simply naturally taken leadership roles based on their existing experience. I personally see nothing wrong with that; those with considerable experience are probably those best suited to develop a system surrounding their field.
Quote: Quote: There is currently discussions going on about leadership structure. Guild doesn't have to have an authority structure if they do not want it, it is up to the guild. So you're saying that the guild can decide not to have leaders?? That's like congress voting to not have ever existed!
No, it's more like a community voting not to have a mayor. If a Guild wants to organize itself in such a way that everyone is considered equal, with only one level of rank, promotion, access, or power, they are well within their rights and the boundaries of logic to do so. I'm not sure how well it would work out in the long run, but they're perfectly free to establish a level playing field within their Guild if they so choose.
Quote: Ha! You prove my point. It's up to the guild?? Who decides for "the guild?" Who is "they?" The people over at the GoW are well intentioned, but without a recognized authority from explorers or Cyan, they will never be able to legitimately decide anything on behalf of the guild.
While I wholeheartedly agree that ultimately, it comes down to Cyan and to a certain extent the explorers to decide the officiality of any Guild system that gets developed, I think the decision-making process for creating that Guild should be left to those who have a marked interest in its creation in the first place. Logically, they would be the ones best suited to understand the requirements of such an organization, and be in the best position to develop a system for handling those requirements. Ideally, all those interested in creating such a group would work together, and perhaps amazingly, that seems to be happening so far. The GoMe is perhaps taking off a lot slower, likely because of the questions over how to integrate with established "media" groups in the Cavern already, but the GoMa seems to be rolling along fairly smoothly as one group, and the GoW is, so far, in a similar position.
Now, here's my main question: what exactly would these elections you're calling for be doing? Voting on whether to create the Guild? Who should run it? How to structure it? How to perform the tasks assigned to it? What those tasks should be in the first place? (Why do these questions sound eerily familiar?) These are decisions already being made by those with an actual interest in the Guild in the first place. While their decisions are obviously not "official" until Cyan says they are, I fail to see how that invalidates the work they're doing to create a group whose officiality can actually be decided.
To pull this off of the GoW briefly, I'd like to ask you this: I'm working to establish a Guild of Archivists in the Cavern. Do I need public approval before doing so? Do I need to be elected to a non-existent position of non-power before anything I say or do has any legitimacy? Do my eight years of unofficial experience count for anything in the decision-making process of creating the GoA? Would we even get 10 votes in a public poll on who should lead such a Guild, or how it should be run, or what it should be doing?
Incidentally, that's another thing to keep in mind: holding public elections for the leadership of a specialized organization is likely not going to generate much interest. Heck, we can't even get people in this country to vote for the President once every 4 years . Holding an election in public for the GoW leadership will likely generate interest and candidates only from those already involved in the process in the first place, basically leaving us right back where we are now, with no official approval of the Guild from Cyan. If you want to have a say in what a given Guild should be like, join in the conversations these groups already have underway. In my experience, the best way to influence the process is to get involved in the process itself, not vote on the various minutiae involved in creating the process to decide things.
I say, let the GoW do their thing. If they develop a system that Cyan doesn't approve of, or if they're simply unable to develop something that works well enough to submit it to Cyan for approval, then so be it. However, if their efforts are approved by Cyan as an official Guild of Writers, I think it will be a Guild built on the experience of those best suited to lead it, and capable of hitting the ground running with any responsibilities that end up being thrown its way.
_________________ Grand Master
Guild of Archivists
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